Abstract
To assess how remote spatial frequency components of the mask influence the pattern masking in temporal domain, the masking effect was measured under various presentation duration (50, 100, 250 and 1000ms) in monocular, binocular and dichoptic viewing conditions. The target was a horizontal sine-wave grating with spatial frequency of 1 cpd. Three types of masks with the same fundamental spatial frequency were used: a sine-wave grating(S), a square-wave grating (Q), and a missing fundamental square-wave grating (M). The contrast of the mask was set at either 0% or 40%. A spatial four-alternative-force-choice was used to measure the target threshold. The results showed the presentation duration had no main masking effect, suggesting the masking occurs fast, at least within 50ms. Under monocular and binocular viewing conditions, the Q mask caused a stronger masking effect than the S masks and the M masks also caused significant masking. Under dichoptic viewing, on the contrary, the S masks caused stronger masking than the Q masks and masking effect also occurred in dichoptic M mask. These results suggested that the contributions of remote spatial frequencies are rapid, occurring within 50ms and differ under monocular and dichoptic viewing.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2013