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Brightness perception in the visual field

Effects of retinal position and adaptation level

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Summary

Apparent brightness was measured at different positions in the visual field for scotopic, mesopic, and photopic adaptation levels by means of a magnitude estimation technique. Apparent brightness of targets with a given luminance remained rather constant throughout the visual field for the mesopic and photopic adaptation level; for the scotopic adaptation level targets in the foveal and perifoveal area had to be more intense in order to appear as bright as targets in the far periphery (beyond 20° eccentricity). For the photopic range, two brightness power functions with different exponents were obtained for the luminance range from 1 to 100 mL at each eccentricity. The exponent for the range from 1 to 10 mL is considerably greater than the exponent beyond 10 mL, and appears to increase with increasing eccentricity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Psychiatrie, Kraepelinstraße 10, D-8000, München 40, Federal Republic of Germany

    J. Zihl & P. Lissy

  2. Institut für medizinische Psychologie, Schillerstraße 42, D-8000, München 2, Federal Republic of Germany

    E. Pöppel

Authors
  1. J. Zihl
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  2. P. Lissy
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  3. E. Pöppel
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Additional information

The experiments described in this paper were partly supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and SFB 50-C 6.

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Zihl, J., Lissy, P. & Pöppel, E. Brightness perception in the visual field. Psychol. Res 41, 297–304 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00308875

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00308875

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