Model of contrast sensitivity of the human visual system during stimulus movement

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Abstract

A model of contrast sensitivity of the human visual system when perceiving sinusoidal gratings moving at angular speeds of up to 1000 degrees per second is considered. The model is built on the basis of a tremor modulation signal, which is taken to be the difference in the concentration of the photoreagent at the extreme points of the tremor, normalized to the level of adaptation. The model details the dependence of contrast sensitivity on physiological factors such as photoreceptor size, amplitude and frequency of tremor for adaptation brightness of 0.001–1000 cd/m2. The model establishes a relationship between the results of measuring the contrast sensitivity of the visual system and the results of measuring natural tremor oscillations of the eyes during the perception of stationary and dynamic stimuli.

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About the authors

S. I. Lyapunov

A.M. Prokhorov Institute of General Physics, RAS

Author for correspondence.
Email: dc.cetsil@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Moscow

I. I. Shoshina

Saint Petersburg State University

Email: shoshinaii@mail.ru
Russian Federation, St. Petersburg

I. S. Lyapunov

A.M. Prokhorov Institute of General Physics, RAS

Email: i.shoshina@spbu.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow

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2. Fig. 1. Dependence of contrast sensitivity on the speed of movement of a sinusoidal stimulus [1]. Speed ​​(V) of movement of a sinusoidal stimulus: line 1 – 800 deg/s, line 2 – 100 deg/s, line 3 – 10 deg/s, line 4 – 1 deg/s, line 5 – 0 deg/s at an adaptation brightness of La = 200 cd/m2 and a stimulus field of 15 × 15 deg.

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3. Fig. 2. Change in the contrast sensitivity function depending on the temporal frequency of the sinusoidal grating [1]. Line 1 – 800 deg/s, line 2 – 100 deg/s, line 3 – 10 deg/s, line 4 – 1 deg/s.

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4. Fig. 3. Optical transfer function (OTF) of the optical system of the eye depending on the pupil diameter. Line 1 – OTF for a pupil diameter of 2 mm, line 2 – diameter 3 mm, line 3 – diameter 4 mm, line 4 – diameter 5 mm, line 5 corresponds to a pupil diameter of 6 mm.

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5. Fig. 4. The response to a sinusoidal wave (RSW) of the visual system and the geometric factor of the tremor modulation signal (GF TMS). Line 1 – GF TMS for a photoreceptor size of 1 arc min; line 2 – GF TMS for a photoreceptor size of 0.5 arc min; line 3 – RSW of the visual system [11–12].

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6. Fig. 5. Dependence of the response to a sinusoidal wave (RSW) on the speed of stimulus movement. Numbers from 1 to 7 indicate the graphs of the RSW for the movement of a sinusoidal stimulus with a speed (V) = 0, 1, 10, 100, 300, 800, 1000 deg/s; adaptation brightness La = 200 cd/m2; stimulus field 15 × 15 deg.; the dot graph reflects the RSW of the visual system [11–12].

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