title: Why is second-order vision less efficient than first-order vision?
abstract: Research has shown that the sensitivity to second-order modulations of carrier contrast is lower than that to first-order luminance modulations stimuli. We sought to compare the efficiency of processing first- and second-order information. Employing a phase-discrimination paradigm we found that when humans were given sufficient a priori information of signal parameters they detected both luminance and contrast modulations of 0.6 and 2c/deg by a phase-sensitive algorithm. The overall detection efficiency for second-order patterns, however, was lower that that for first-order stimuli. To study the factors which limit the efficiency of first- and second-order vision, we measured detection performance for luminance and contrast modulations of 0.6 and 2c/deg embedded in Gaussian noise. The results showed that the detection of second-order patterns had lower sampling efficiency and higher additive internal noise as compared to the detection of first-order stimuli. Classification images for detecting contrast modulations of 2c/deg resembled the side-band component of the contrast modulations which suggests that human observers may detect contrast modulations of a sinusoidal carrier using first-order luminance channels. The lower sensitivity of the mechanism detecting second-order patterns might be due to higher levels of additive internal noise and lower sampling efficiency than those of the mechanism analysing first-order patterns.
authors.affiliation: Department of Vision Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK. vma@gcal.ac.uk
authors.forename: Velitchko
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Manahilov
authors.forename: William A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Simpson
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Calvert
mesh_terms: D015350:Contrast Sensitivity / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008027:Light; D008433:Mathematics; D008954:Models, Biological; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D015348:Vision, Binocular / Q000502:physiology*; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology