Abstract
Tachistoscopic presentation of scenes has been valuable for studying the emerging properties of visual scene representations. The spatial aspects of this work have generally been focused on the conceptual locations (e.g., next to the refrigerator) and directional locations of objects in 2-D arrays and/or images. Less is known about how the perceived egocentric distance of objects develops. Here we describe a novel system for presenting brief glimpses of a real-world environment, followed by a mask. The system includes projectors with mechanical shutters for projecting the fixation and masking images, a set of LED floodlights for illuminating the environment, and computer-controlled electronics to set the timing and initiate the process. Because a real environment is used, most visual distance and depth cues can be manipulated using traditional methods. The system is inexpensive, robust, and its components are readily available in the marketplace. This article describes the system and the timing characteristics of each component. We verified the system’s ability to control exposure to time scales as low as a few milliseconds.
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Notes
It should be noted that the inclusion of a fixation point would lead the observer to fixate on a virtual location that depends on the distance from the beamsplitter to the projection screen. With or without a fixation point, the oculomotor posture of the eyes may not be informative about target distance when viewing time is limited. However, monocular and binocular forms of parallax—the cues that elicit accommodation and convergence—remain available and potentially useful sources of information about target distance (Foley, 1978).
Another consideration is that many solid-state relays designed for alternating current wait for a “zero crossing” to actuate, resulting in an unpredictable delay of up to 8 ms. This can be avoided by careful selection of the components.
Standard capacitors are (depending on their construction) generally only guaranteed to be within 10 % or 20 % of their nominal capacitance. Thus, a nominal 100-μF capacitor may range anywhere from 80 to 120 μF. The actual value must be determined though testing. However, the capacitance, once determined, is constant. The minimum nominal delay as the circuit is configured is theoretically 150 μs. To limit the current drawn by the delay circuit, an artificial lower limit of about 4 ms is enforced in software.
Because the photodiode saturates in the experimental configuration, we take the LED lamps to be fully illuminated when the photodiode output is at its saturation value. If we compare the rise and fall curves of the LED response in Figs. 2 and 3, it is clear that the LED has reached at least 75 % of full illumination at saturation.
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Author Note
This research was supported by NIH Grant No. R01EY021771 to J.W.P.
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Chichka, D., Philbeck, J.W. & Gajewski, D.A. Tachistoscopic illumination and masking of real scenes. Behav Res 47, 45–52 (2015). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0449-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0449-z