Biomedical subjects

Barton L Anderson

Publications and source records attributed to Barton L Anderson.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

The perceived transmittance of inhomogeneous surfaces and media.

A series of experiments was performed to determine how the visual system computes the transmittance of inhomogeneous surfaces and media. Previous work (Anderson, B. L. (1999) Stereoscopic surface perception. Neuron, 26, 919-928; Anderson, B. L. (2003) The role of occlusion in the perception of depth, lightness, and opacity. Psychological Review, 110, 762-784) has suggested that the visual system employs a transmittance anchoring principle in determining when transparency is perceived. This principle states that the visual system interprets the highest contrast region along contours and surfaces as a region in plain view and uses this anchor as a reference point for transparency computations. In particular, recent work has shown that the transmittance of homogeneous transparent surfaces is well described by a ratio of contrasts model (Singh, M., & Anderson, B. L. (2002). Toward a perceptual theory of transparency. Psychological Review, 109, 492-519). In this model, the transmittance of a transparent surface is determined by the contrast of a transparent image region normalized by the contrast of the region in plain view. Here, a series of experiments is reported that assesses this model for inhomogeneous transparent surfaces that vary in both space and time. The results of these experiments reveal that transmittance anchoring has both a spatial and temporal component, and that the perceived transmittance of transparent surfaces is well described by a ratio of perceived contrasts model.

Contrast Sensitivity↗

PubMed2005

Photometric determinants of perceived transparency.

Photometric constraints for the perception of transparency were investigated using stereoscopic textured displays. A contrast discontinuity divided the textured displays into two lateral halves, with one (reference) half fixed. Observers adjusted the luminance range within the other (test) half in order to perform two tasks: (i) indicate the highest luminance range for which the test side is perceived to be transparent, and (ii) indicate the lowest luminance range for which the test side is seen as being in plain view. Settings were obtained for multiple values of test mean luminance, in order to map out the perceptual locus of transition between transparency and non-transparency. The results revealed a systematic violation of Metelli's magnitude constraint in predicting the percept of transparency. Observer settings were approximated instead by a constraint based on perceived contrast (which matched Michelson contrast for the textures used). The results also revealed large asymmetries between darkening and lightening transparency. When the test was darker than the reference, settings were highly consistent across observers and closely followed the Michelson-contrast prediction. When the test was lighter, however, there was greater variability across observers, with two observers exhibiting shifts toward Metelli's magnitude constraint. Moreover, each observer's setting reliability was significantly worse for lightening transparency than darkening transparency. These results suggest that (polarity-preserving) darkening serves as an additional cue to perceptual transparency.

Contrast Sensitivity↗

PubMed2005

Monocular transparency and unpaired stereopsis.

Howard and Duke [Howard, I. P. & Duke, P. A. (2003). Monocular transparency generates quantitative depth. Vision Research, 43, 2615-2621] recently proposed a new source of binocular information they claim is used to recover depth in stereoscopic displays. They argued that these displays lack conventional disparity and that the metrical depth experienced results from transparency rather than occlusion relations. Using a variety of modified versions of their stimuli, we show here that the conditions for transparency are not required to elicit the depth experienced in their stereograms. We demonstrate that quantitative and precise depth depended not on the presence of transparency but horizontal contours of the same contrast polarity. Depth was attenuated, particularly at larger target offsets, when horizontal contours had opposite contrast polarity for at least a portion of their length. We also show that a demonstration they used to control for the role of horizontal contours can be understood with previously identified mechanisms involved in the computations associated with stereoscopic occlusion. These results imply that the findings reported by Howard and Duke can be understood with mechanisms responsible for the computation of binocular disparity and stereoscopic occlusion.

Contrast Sensitivity↗

PubMed2005

Image segmentation and lightness perception.

The perception of surface albedo (lightness) is one of the most basic aspects of visual awareness. It is well known that the apparent lightness of a target depends on the context in which it is embedded, but there is extensive debate about the computations and representations underlying perceived lightness. One view asserts that the visual system explicitly separates surface reflectance from the prevailing illumination and atmospheric conditions in which it is embedded, generating layered image representations. Some recent theory has challenged this view and asserted that the human visual system derives surface lightness without explicitly segmenting images into multiple layers. Here we present new lightness illusions--the largest reported to date--that unequivocally demonstrate the effect that layered image representations can have in lightness perception. We show that the computations that underlie the decomposition of luminance into multiple layers under conditions of transparency can induce dramatic lightness illusions, causing identical texture patches to appear either black or white. These results indicate that mechanisms involved in decomposing images into layered representations can play a decisive role in the perception of surface lightness.

Color↗

PubMed2003

The role of occlusion in the perception of depth, lightness, and opacity.

A theory is presented that explains how the visual system infers the lightness, opacity, and depth of surfaces from stereoscopic images. It is shown that the polarity and magnitude of image contrast play distinct roles in surface perception, which can be captured by 2 principles of perceptual inference. First, a contrast depth asymmetry principle articulates how the visual system computes the ordinal depth and lightness relationships from the polarity of local, binocularly matched image contrast. Second, a global transmittance anchoring principle expresses how variations in contrast magnitudes are used to infer the presence of transparent surfaces. It is argued that these principles provide a unified explanation of how the visual system computes the 3-D surface structure of opaque and transparent surfaces.

Depth Perception↗

PubMed2003

Perceptual organization and White's illusion.

The apparent lightness of a surface can be strongly modulated by the spatial context in which it is embedded. Early theories of such context dependence emphasized the role of low-level mechanisms that sense border contrast, whereas a number of recent authors have emphasized the role of perceptual organization in determining perceived lightness. One of the simplest and most theoretically challenging lightness illusions was described by White. This illusion has been explained with a variety of different models, ranging from low-level filter outputs to computations underlying the extraction of mid-level representations of surfaces. Here, I present a new method for determining the organizational forces that shape this illusion. I show that the spatial context of White's pattern not only transforms the apparent lightness of homogeneous target patches. but can also induce dramatic inversions of figure-ground relationships of textured target regions. These phenomena provide new evidence for the role of scission in causing the lightness illusion experienced in White's effect.

Contrast Sensitivity↗

PubMed2002

The interpolation of object and surface structure.

One of the main theoretical challenges of vision science is to explain how the visual system interpolates missing structure. Two forms of visual completion have been distinguished on the basis of the phenomenological states that they induce. Modal completion refers to the formation of visible surfaces and/or contours in image regions where these properties are not specified locally. Amodal completion refers to the perceived unity of objects that are partially obscured by occluding surfaces. Although these two forms of completion elicit very different phenomenological states, it has been argued that a common mechanism underlies modal and amodal boundary and surface interpolation (the "identity hypothesis"; Kellman & Shipley, 1991; Kellman, 2001). Here, we provide new data, demonstrations, and theoretical principles that challenge this view. We show that modal boundary and surface completion processes exhibit a strong dependence on the prevailing luminance relationships of a scene, whereas amodal completion processes do not. We also demonstrate that the shape of interpolated contours can change when a figure undergoes a transition from a modal to an amodal appearance, in direct contrast to the identity hypothesis. We argue that these and previous results demonstrate that modal and amodal completion do not result from a common interpolation mechanism.

Depth Perception↗

PubMed2002

Toward a perceptual theory of transparency.

Theories of perceptual transparency have typically been developed within the context of a physical model that generates the percept of transparency (F. Metelli's episcotister model, 1974b). Here 2 fundamental questions are investigated: (a) When does the visual system initiate the percept of one surface seen through another? (b) How does it assign surface properties to a transparent layer? Results reveal systematic deviations from the predictions of Metelli's model, both for initiating image decomposition into multiple surfaces and for assigning surface attributes. Specifically, results demonstrate that the visual system uses Michelson contrast as a critical image variable to initiate percepts of transparency and to assign transmittance to transparent surfaces. Findings are discussed in relation to previous theories of transparency, lightness, brightness, and contrast-contrast.

Cues↗

PubMed2002

Perceptual assignment of opacity to translucent surfaces: the role of image blur.

In constructing the percept of transparency, the visual system must decompose the light intensity at each image location into two components one for the partially transmissivc surface, the other for the underlying surface seen through it. Theories of perceptual transparency have typically assumed that this decomposition is defined quantitatively in terms of the inverse of some physical model (typically, Metelli's 'episcotister model'). In previous work, we demonstrated that the visual system uses Michelson contrast as a critical image variable in assigning transmittance to transparent surfaces not luminance differences as predicted by Metelli's model [F Metelli, 1974 Scientific American 230(4) 90 98]. In this paper, we study the contribution of another variable in determining perceived transmittance, namely, the image blur introduced by the light-scattering properties of translucent surfaces and materials. Experiment 1 demonstrates that increasing the degree of blur in the region of transparency leads to a lowering in perceived transmittance, even if Michelson contrast remains constant in this region. Experiment 2 tests how this addition of blur affects apparent contrast in the absence of perceived transparency. The results demonstrate that, although introducing blur leads to a lowering in apparent contrast, the magnitude of this decrease is relatively small, and not sufficient to explain the decrease in perceived transmittance observed in experiment 1. The visual system thus takes the presence of blur in the region of transparency as an additional image cue in assigning transmittance to partially transmissive surfaces.

Contrast Sensitivity↗