Abstract
Spatial phase plays an important role in the characterization of images and other visual patterns. Despite this, relatively few experiments have investigated the role of phase per se in human vision. Recent studies by Kersten (1983) and Burgess and Ghandeharian (1984) have shown that human observers are more sensitive to sinusoidal grating patterns when they have prior knowledge of the pattern’s absolute phase than when they do not. They concluded that observers act as phase-sensitive detectors at least some of the time. Two forced-choice sinusoidal grating detection experiments are reported here which extend these results. Absolute signal phase was either held constant or varied randomly across trials. On half of the random-phase trials, observers were shown a sinusoidal grating cue that revealed the absolute phase of the test signal for that trial. There were three major findings. First, detection performance in both experiments was substantially better when phase information was provided than when it was not. This is consistent with previous findings. Second, information about signal phase was provided equally effectively by holding phase constant over all trials within a testing block (as in the constantphase conditions) or by providing an explicit phase cue 250 msec before each trial. Third, a phase cue presented 250 msec after the test pattern offset led to performance levels intermediate between the superior constant-phase condition and the uncued random-phase condition. In other words, observers were able to use phase information even when it was presented in a postcue. The findings are discussed in terms of alternative phase-sensitive detection models.
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This research was supported by a contract from the Perceptual Sciences Program of the Office of Naval Research
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Howard, J.H., Richardson, K.H. Absolute phase uncertainty in sinusoidal grating detection. Perception & Psychophysics 43, 38–44 (1988). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208971
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208971