Revisiting spatial vision: toward a unifying model

Abstract

We report contrast detection, contrast increment, contrast masking, orientation discrimination, and spatial frequency discrimination thresholds for spatially localized stimuli at 4° of eccentricity. Our stimulus geometry emphasizes interactions among overlapping visual filters and differs from that used in previous threshold measurements, which also admits interactions among distant filters. We quantitatively account for all measurements by simulating a small population of overlapping visual filters interacting through divisive inhibition. We depart from previous models of this kind in the parameters of divisive inhibition and in using a statistically efficient decision stage based on Fisher information. The success of this unified account suggests that, contrary to Bowne [Vision Res. 30, 449 (1990)], spatial vision thresholds reflect a single level of processing, perhaps as early as primary visual cortex.