Abstract

Recent data have shown that spatial-frequency adaptation has little effect on spatial-frequency discrimination at the adapting frequency, but there is a substantial elevation of discrimination thresholds at frequencies about one octave higher than the adapting frequency. It has also been shown that adaptation produces elevations in grating-orientation discrimination at orientations displaced by ±12.0–15.0 deg from the adapting orientation. In this paper, we show that these results agree quantitatively with the predictions (some of which were made without knowledge of the experimental results) of a line-element model for spatial-frequency discrimination. Spatial-frequency bandwidths of the visual mechanisms were previously obtained from masking data. For the orientation-discrimination predictions, the line-element model was generalized to incorporate orientation bandwidths for the spatial mechanisms, again estimated from masking data.

© 1984 Optical Society of America

Modified line-element theory for spatial-frequency and width discrimination

Hugh R. Wilson and Douglas J. Gelb
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 1(1) 124-131 (1984)

Masking of spatial-frequency discrimination

D. Regan
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 2(7) 1153-1159 (1985)

Orientation bandwidths of spatial mechanisms measured by masking

Gregory C. Phillips and Hugh R. Wilson
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 1(2) 226-232 (1984)

Spatial-frequency discrimination and detection: comparison of postadaptation thresholds

D. Regan and K. I. Beverley
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73(12) 1684-1690 (1983)

Postadaptation orientation discrimination

D. Regan and K. I. Beverley
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 2(2) 147-155 (1985)