title: [Mechanisms of human orientation sensitivity of the vision system. Part I. Behavioral characteristics of human orientation sensitivity. Influence of task type, experimental conditions and gender].
abstract: Orientation sensitivity in human visual system was investigated in three experiments. In the first experiment 134 subjects were to determine the orientation of the segments of short lines, by "selecting" it from a set of reference orientations (Benton's test). In the second experiment 41 subject, which was chosen from participants of the first experiment, were to estimate the proximity of oblique lines to the vertical, horizontal, and 45° axis. In the third experiment participants were to identify the orientation of cardinal (0° and 90°) and oblique (45° and 135°) lines. It was shown that the cardinal orientations were defined more accurately and faster than the oblique ones. Error type depended on experimental conditions: participant answers tilted to horizontal under normal illumination in the presence of peripheral visual information, but they tilted to vertical under low illumination (3 lux.). Women performed worse only those tasks which require precise determination of the line orientation. It was assumed that the metric spatial characteristics determined better by males then females. The oblique effect was more pronounced in females, presumably due to gender differences in brain organization of the multimodal reference frame.
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Slavutskaia
authors.forename: N Iu
authors.initials: NIu
authors.lastname: Gerasimenko
authors.forename: E S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Mikhaĭlova
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult