The magnitude of center-surround facilitation in the discrimination of amplitude spectrum is dependent on the amplitude of the surround

Abstract

Recent studies explored the sensitivity of human perception to natural images, in particular the sensitivity of the visual system to discriminate changes in the amplitude spectrum slope. Previous slope discrimination experiments were carried out with stimuli presented either in the fovea or the parafovea/periphery and show that both yield poor discrimination at very steep or relatively shallow slopes. We verified if the well-known center-surround spatial interactions that operate early on in the visual processing stream influence the perception of real-world images. The results show that amplitude slope discrimination is greatly reduced (i.e., flat) when the stimulus is viewed in isolation. However, when a 2° target is placed within a surround containing an amplitude spectrum slope of 1 or 1.3, we see significant facilitation in detecting variations in the slope of the amplitude spectrum, particularly when the target contains an amplitude spectrum slope of 1 and 1.3. The results suggest that our visual system is sensitive to contextual interactions for stimuli that have the characteristics of natural images.