TL;DR: The use of the staircase-method is illustrated, its relative merits and demerits are discussed, and a modification is described which overcomes certain of the disadvantages of the method.
Abstract: NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS THE STAIRCASE-METHOD IN PSYCHOPHYSICS A psychophysical method variously referred to as the method of up and downs, 1 the Bekesy audiometric method, 2 or the staircase-method, has come into extensive use in the last few years. The method has several advantages over other more commonly used techniques but it also has some disadvantages. This paper will illustrate the use of the method, will discuss its relative merits and demerits, and will describe a modification which overcomes certain of the disadvantages of the method. The staircase-method is best described by illustrating its use with a specific prob- lem. Suppose the problem is to determine S's absolute, intensive threshold for the sound of a click. The first stimulus that E delivers is a click of some arbitrary intensity. S responds either that he did or did not hear it. If S says 'yes' (he did hear it), the next stimulus is made less intense, and if S says 'no,' the second stimulus is made more intense. If S responds 'yes' to the second stimulus, the third is made less intense, and if he says 'no,' it is made more intense. This procedure is simply continued until some predetermined criterion or 'number of trials' is reached. The results of a series of 30 trials are shown in Fig. 1. The results may be recorded directly on graph-paper; doing so helps E keep the procedure straight. There are a number of ways of determining the intensive value that represents the threshold. The simplest is to compute the mean of the values of a given num- ber of stimuli delivered after the series has reached its final level. This requires an arbitrary decision about when the final level has been reached. The technique, which avoids this difficulty and yields a 50% value, is simply to determine the stimulus above which 50% of the responses are 'yes,'-i.e. in Fig. 1 between 61 and 62 db. Statistical treatment of the results has been discussed by Dixon and Massey, who describe the techniques for determining the means, standard deviations, standard errors, etc., for this type of data.3 The treatments assume, however, that the response to each stimulus is independent of the preceding stimuli and pre- ceding responses. This assumption holds for the examples analyzed, but there is evidence that the assumption does not always hold for human Ss in psychophysical experiments.• The development of techn.iques that take the existing inter-actions into account has not as yet been achieved. W. J. Dixon and F. J. Massey, lnt,.oduction lo Statistical Analysis, 1957, 279· •Georg von Bekesy, A new audiometer, A'la 010-/a,.yngol., 35, 1947, 411-422. •Dixon and Massey, op. cit., 286. • W. S. Verplanck, G. H. Collier, and J. W. Cotton, Nonindependence of succes- sive responses in measurement of the visual threshold, /. exp. Psycho/., 42, 1952, 273-282; Verplanck and Cotton, The dependence of frequencies of seeing on pro- cedural variables: J. Direction and length of series of intensity-ordered stimuli, /. gen. Psycho/., 53, 1955, 37-47; V. L. Senders, Further analysis of response se- quences in the setting of a psychophysical experiment, this JOURNAL, 66, 1 953, 215-229; R. S. Woodworth and Harold Schlosberg, Experimental Psychology, 1954,
TL;DR: A mathematical model that successfully describes a wide range of results in human and other mammals is presented, showing that the time-course of human dark adaptation and pigment regeneration is determined by the local concentration of 11-cis retinal, and that after a large bleach the recovery is limited by the rate at which 11-Cis Retinal is delivered to opsin in the bleached rod outer segments.
TL;DR: A mathematical model is constructed for DWT noise detection thresholds that is a function of level, orientation, and display visual resolution that allows calculation of a "perceptually lossless" quantization matrix for which all errors are in theory below the visual threshold.
Abstract: The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) decomposes an image into bands that vary in spatial frequency and orientation. It is widely used for image compression, measures of the visibility of DWT quantization errors are required to achieve optimal compression. Uniform quantization of a single band of coefficients results in an artifact that we call DWT uniform quantization noise; it is the sum of a lattice of random amplitude basis functions of the corresponding DWT synthesis filter. We measured visual detection thresholds for samples of DWT uniform quantization noise in Y, Cb, and Cr color channels. The spatial frequency of a wavelet is r2/sup -/spl lambda//, where r is the display visual resolution in pixels/degree, and /spl lambda/ is the wavelet level. Thresholds increase rapidly with wavelet spatial frequency. Thresholds also increase from Y to Cr to Cb, and with orientation from lowpass to horizontal/vertical to diagonal. We construct a mathematical model for DWT noise detection thresholds that is a function of level, orientation, and display visual resolution. This allows calculation of a "perceptually lossless" quantization matrix for which all errors are in theory below the visual threshold. The model may also be used as the basis for adaptive quantization schemes.
TL;DR: The data show that head-tracking in a virtual optokinetic drum is driven by subcortical, lower frequency, and contralateral pathways, and that the visual capabilities of each eye can be measured under binocular conditions simply by changing the direction of rotation.
Abstract: Slow horizontal head and body rotation occurs in mice and rats when the visual field is rotated around them, and these optomotor movements can be produced reliably in a virtual-reality system. If one eye is closed, only motion in the temporal-to-nasal direction for the contralateral eye evokes the tracking response. When the maximal spatial frequency capable of driving the response ("acuity") was measured under monocular and binocular viewing conditions, the monocular acuity was identical to the binocular acuity measured with the same rotation direction. Thus, the visual capabilities of each eye can be measured under binocular conditions simply by changing the direction of rotation. Lesions of the visual cortex had no effect on the acuities measured with the virtual optokinetic system, whereas perceptual thresholds obtained previously with the Visual Water Task are. The optokinetic acuities were also consistently lower than acuity estimates from the Visual Water Task, but contrast sensitivities were the same or better. These data show that head-tracking in a virtual optokinetic drum is driven by subcortical, lower frequency, and contralateral pathways.
TL;DR: It is concluded that lack of perception during saccadic eye movements made in normal contoured environments results primarily from the visual “masking” effect of a clear image before and/or after the eye movement acting on the grey-out during the eyemovement.