title: A temporal window for estimating surface brightness in the Craik-O'Brien-Cornsweet effect.
abstract: The central edge of an opposing pair of luminance gradients (COC edge) makes adjoining regions with identical luminance appear to be different. This brightness illusion, called the Craik-O'Brien-Cornsweet effect (COCe), can be explained by low-level spatial filtering mechanisms (Dakin and Bex, 2003). Also, the COCe is greatly reduced when the stimulus lacks a frame element surrounding the COC edge (Purves et al., 1999). This indicates that the COCe can be modulated by extra contextual cues that are related to ideas about lighting priors. In this study, we examined whether processing for contextual modulation could be independent of the main COCe processing mediated by the filtering mechanism. We displayed the COC edge and frame element at physically different times. Then, while varying the onset asynchrony between them and changing the luminance contrast of the frame element, we measured the size of the COCe. We found that the COCe was observed in the temporal range of around 600-800 ms centered at the 0 ms (from around -400 to 400 ms in stimulus onset asynchrony), which was much larger than the range of typical visual persistency. More importantly, this temporal range did not change significantly regardless of differences in the luminance contrast of the frame element (5-100%), in the durations of COC edge and/or the frame element (50 or 200 ms), in the display condition (interocular or binocular), and in the type of lines constituting the frame element (solid or illusory lines). Results suggest that the visual system can bind the COC edge and frame element with a temporal window of ~1 s to estimate surface brightness. Information from the basic filtering mechanism and information of contextual cue are separately processed and are linked afterwards.
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrated Psychological Science, Kwansei Gakuin University Nishinomiya, Japan.
authors.forename: Ayako
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Masuda
authors.affiliation: NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Atsugi, Japan.
authors.forename: Junji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.affiliation: NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Atsugi, Japan ; Department of Life Sciences, University of Tokyo Meguro, Japan.
authors.forename: Masahiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Terao
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrated Psychological Science, Kwansei Gakuin University Nishinomiya, Japan.
authors.forename: Akihiro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yagi
authors.affiliation: NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Atsugi, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazushi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Maruya
keywords: Craik-O'Brien-Cornsweet effect; brightness induction; masking; subjective contour; temporal window