Spatiotemporal mechanisms for detecting and identifying image features in human vision.
Our visual system constantly selects salient features in the environment, so that only those features are attended and targeted by further processing efforts to identify them. Models of feature detection hypothesize that salient features are localized based on contrast energy (local variance in intensity) in the visual stimulus. This hypothesis, however, has not been tested directly. We used psychophysical reverse correlation to study how humans detect and identify basic image features (bars and short line segments). Subjects detected a briefly flashed 'target bar' that was embedded in 'noise bars' that randomly changed in intensity over space and time. By studying how the intensity of the noise bars affected performance, we were able to dissociate two processing stages: an early 'detection' stage, whereby only locations of high-contrast energy in the image are selected, followed (after approximately 100 ms) by an 'identification' stage, whereby image intensity at selected locations is used to determine the identity (whether bright or dark) of the target.
Neri
Peter
P
Department of Psychology, Serra Mall 450, Stanford University, Stanford California 94305, USA. pn@white.stanford.edu
Heeger
David J
DJ
D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013997:Time Factors