Illusory Correlation of Brightness Enhancement and Transients in the Nervous System

Wasserman, Gerald S.; Kong, King-Leung

doi:10.1126/science.184.4139.911

Cited by 24 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Plotting a transient visual response produces a curve that resembles a Broca-Sulzer curve. Yet, as Wasserman and Kong (1974) made clear, the Broca-Sulzer effect cannot be the result of transient visual activity. In a Broca-Sulzer experiment the observer does not see a patch of light growing and then dimming over time.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nonmonotone backward masking functions and brightness reversals

Stewart

Purcell

Pinkham

2011

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Increasing the target-field luminance aids detection for a simultaneously presented black target disc and a black masking annulus. At an intermediate interval separating the onset of the target from the mask, increasing the target-field luminance reduces target detection. This decrease in performance occurs with both temporal and spatial forced choice tasks. With a spatial forced choice, an observer's performance can fall below chance. We associate below-chance performance with a brightness reversal of the black target disc, such that the target disc appears brighter than its surround. The occurrence of brightness reversals follows from our model of the Broca-Sulzer effect, and nonmonotone masking functions result from a generalization of luminance summation.Keywords Visual backward masking . U-shaped functions . Broca-Sulzer effect . Brightness reversal . Metacontrast maskingThe detection of a briefly flashed target, such as a black disc, is sometimes suppressed by the onset of a second stimulus, the masking stimulus. When the target is followed by a surrounding figure, such as a black annulus, the interplay of target and mask is called backward masking. Under conditions of backward masking, both target detection and letter identification can decrease as the delay between the onset of the stimulus and the onset of the mask increases. The resulting nonmonotone performance curves are addressed by most accounts of visual masking . Under some conditions, however, target detection is worse than chance. No current explanation of masking accounts for below-chance performance.Our account of below-chance performance rests on three propositions: (i) A spatial two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) task can produce nonmonotone performance curves. For pronounced nonmonotone curves, detection can be worse than chance. (ii) These nonmonotone backward-masking curves represent a change in an observer's sensitivity for certain delays between target and mask onset, even for targets that fall on the fovea. A dark target, followed by an appropriate masking stimulus, sometimes appears to be brighter than its background, a phenomenon we have called a brightness reversal . Pronounced brightness reversals occur with black-on-white figures and can lead to below-chance target detection. (iii) Our conjecture is that brightness reversals result from the same combination of excitation, inhibition, and luminance summation that produces the Broca-Sulzer effect (Berman & Stewart, 1978a, 1978b, 1979Marks, 1974). These brightness reversals result in below-chance performance with a spatial 2AFC.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Note that the net output n is a function of time, while the Broca-Sulzer function represents brightness that changes with duration τ (Berman & Stewart, 1978a, 1978b, 1979Wasserman & Kong, 1974).…”

Section: A Formal Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonmonotone backward masking functions and brightness reversals

Stewart

Purcell

Pinkham

2011

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…We empirically demonstrated, in intracellular recordings from single photoreceptor cells (Wasserman & Kong, 1974), that these two different characterizations of the exact same responses yield completely different outcomes: increasing the duration of the stimulus ensemble produces a monotone increase in the amplitude of the set of neural responses, whereas the amplitude of the neural response to a single stimulus first increases and then decreases as time after stimulus onset increases.…”

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confidence: 98%

“…Thecomparison of brain with behavior may be adversely affected by an illusory correlation between time and duration (Wasserman & Kong, 1974). This time/duration illusory correlation is extremely potent, and it has a tendency to recur even though it has been authoritatively recognized (see Uttal, 1981, pp.…”

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confidence: 99%

Time and duration: A persistent illusion

Wasserman

1991

Perception & Psychophysics

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Attention is drawn to a persistent illusory correlation between the words time and duration. This illusory correlation led Ward (1991) Thecomparison of brain with behavior may be adversely affected by an illusory correlation between time and duration (Wasserman & Kong, 1974). This time/duration illusory correlation is extremely potent, and it has a tendency to recur even though it has been authoritatively recognized (see Uttal, 1981, pp. 498-5(0). It has recently appeared in the pages of this journal in a paper by Ward (1991), whence the present Comment.After reporting on a serious and extensive attempt to compare neural adaptation with informational adaptation, Ward concluded that he had not found a close relation between the two; other things being held roughly equal, neural adaptation, measured in single nerve cells, appeared to Ward to be considerably more rapid than informational adaptation, measured in human behavior. However, the present Comment will show that this conclusion depended on Ward's being influenced by the time/duration illusory correlation. The present Comment will also suggest that a closer correspondence between brain and behavior appears when the illusion is dispelled.The time/duration illusory correlation occurs, in part, because the words time and duration are not only linked intuitively, but also measured in exactly the same unitsseconds. And these two words sometimes actually do refer to the identical quantity; specifically, at the exact moment when a particular stimulus ends, its time relative to stimulus onset is then quantitatively identical to its duration.A deeper source of the difficulty is the existence of two measurement cultures: one for the investigation of the brain and another for the investigation of behavior. It is particularly common in brain measurements to obtain a record of the electrical potential of a nerve cell as a function of time: one connects an electrode to both the cell C~should be addressed to Gerald S. Wasserman, Sensory Co?mg

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“…One problem with this analysis is that physiological data represent neural activity as a function of time generated by a flash of a given duration, whereas psychophysical data reflect changes in brightness as a function of duration (Wasserman & Kong, 1974 change in a nonmonotonic fashion with duration. However, Wasserman and Kong (1974) showed that the initial transient measured electrophysiologically in the limulus, changed monotonically with duration.…”

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confidence: 99%

The effect of phase-reversed and flashed presentations upon the apparent contrast of sinusoidal gratings

Kitterle

1984

Perception & Psychophysics

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The effect of duration upon the apparent contrast of a 0.7-and 7.0-c/deg sinusoidal grating was determined for two modes of temporal presentation: phase reversals and on-off flashes. For both spatial frequencies at durations of less than 60 msec, the apparent contrast of phase-reversed presentations was less than that of on-off flashes. However, for the 0.7-c/deg target at durations of 100-300 msec, the apparent contrast of the phase-reversed presentations was significantly greater than that of on-off presentations. There was no difference in the effect of the two modes of temporal presentation upon apparent contrast at longer durations with the 7.0-c/deg grating. These results are discussed in terms of the role of response transients in the perceived contrast of suprathreshold gratings.

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Illusory Correlation of Brightness Enhancement and Transients in the Nervous System

Cited by 24 publications

References 11 publications

Nonmonotone backward masking functions and brightness reversals

Nonmonotone backward masking functions and brightness reversals

Time and duration: A persistent illusion

The effect of phase-reversed and flashed presentations upon the apparent contrast of sinusoidal gratings

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