What is the primary cause of individual differences in contrast sensitivity?

ABSTRACT: One of the primary objectives of early visual processing is the detection of luminance variations, often termed image contrast. Normal observers can differ in this ability by at least a factor of 4, yet this variation is typically overlooked, and has never been convincingly explained. This study uses two techniques to investigate the main source of individual variations in contrast sensitivity. First, a noise masking experiment assessed whether differences were due to the observer's internal noise, or the efficiency with which they extracted information from the stimulus. Second, contrast discrimination functions from 18 previous studies were compared (pairwise, within studies) using a computational model to determine whether differences were due to internal noise or the low level gain pro

SUBMITTER: Baker DH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3724920 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature