A Measure of Foveal Sensitivity in an Expanded Field of Visual Attention.

Abstract

The report measured the effect of a peripheral task on the foveal contrast sensitivity. The foveal sensitivity was measured while subjects were required to simultaneously concentrate on a peripheral task which was placed at eccentricities of 10 degrees, 20 degrees, and 30 degrees along the right horizontal axis. The peripheral task was a sine-wave grating which was generated on an HP-1205A oscilloscope. The foveal contrast sensitivity was measured for 4 angular orientations using 4 spatial frequencies (3, 6, 10 and 20 cycles per degree) of sine-wave gratings. All threshold measurements were obtained using the staircase method of psychophysical testing. The staircases for each of the 4 orientations were run concurrently by random selections among these orientations. All stimulus presentations were under computer control. Stimulus presentation times were 20, 50, 100, and 500 msec. The results show that with training, a subject's foveal contrast sensitivity was not affected by a peripheral task.

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1976
Accession Number
ADA026010

Entities

People

  • Jack T. Sakai

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Computers
  • Contrast
  • Eccentricity
  • Frequency
  • Frequency Shift
  • Measurement
  • Orientation (Direction)
  • Oscilloscopes
  • Sensitivity
  • Sine Waves
  • Training
  • Waves

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Vision Science/Vision Psychology/Cognitive Neuroscience.