title: Model of visual contrast gain control and pattern masking.
abstract: We have implemented a model of contrast gain and control in human vision that incorporates a number of key features, including a contrast sensitivity function, multiple oriented bandpass channels, accelerating nonlinearities, and a devisive inhibitory gain control pool. The parameters of this model have been optimized through a fit to the recent data that describe masking of a Gabor function by cosine and Gabor masks [J. M. Foley, "Human luminance pattern mechanisms: masking experiments require a new model," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11, 1710 (1994)]. The model achieves a good fit to the data. We also demonstrate how the concept of recruitment may accommodate a variant of this model in which excitatory and inhibitory paths have a common accelerating nonlinearity, but which include multiple channels tuned to different levels of contrast.
authors.affiliation: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035-1000, USA.
authors.forename: A B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Watson
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Solomon
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*