title: The Unilateral Mean Luminance Alters Additive Internal Noise in Normal Vision.
abstract: Luminance has been found to play a modulating role in the processes of many visual tasks. However, the mechanisms underlying the modulation role of luminance have been little studied, and the conclusions have been controversial. Here, using a dichoptic viewing paradigm by varying the luminance in one eye while measuring the contrast-detection threshold in the other eye, we studied the effect of different unilateral mean luminance values on the detectability of sine wave gratings against backgrounds of various levels of white noise in normal subjects. We found that unilateral luminance altered the additive internal noise within a perceptual template model framework, with low luminance increasing the additive internal noise and high luminance reducing it. This finding helps to reveal how luminance modulates contrast detection and its relative mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Diseases, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, PR China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, PR China.
authors.forename: Yongqiang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Diseases, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, PR China zhouy@ustc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yifeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D049449:Luminescence; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011601:Psychophysics; D065853:Spatial Learning; D015348:Vision, Binocular; D015349:Vision, Monocular; D014796:Visual Perception
keywords: Luminance; PTM model; additive internal noise; contrast detection; psychophysics