Blackshot: An Unexpected Dimension of Human Sensitivity to Contrast Michael S. Landy New York University Charles Chubb University of California, Irvine John Econopouly
Outline Back pocket model of texture segregation Investigating a nonlinearity: IID textures Filling in the missing information Result: Blackshot
Texture Segregation Luminance EdgeTexture Edge
The Back Pocket Model
Application of the Back Pocket Model InputVertically filtered Squared2 nd -Order filtered
The Back Pocket Model
How to Measure the Nonlinearity Simple case: Independent, Identically Distributed (IID) textures Appearance indicates at least two channels or nonlinearities: perceived brightness and contrast Technique: Histogram Contrast Analysis (Chubb, Econopouly & Landy, 1994) Result: a third perceptual dimension
IID Textures: The Uniform Histogram
IID Textures: 1 st -Order Modulator = Brightness
IID Textures: 2 nd -Order Modulator = Contrast
Histogram Modulators
N th -Order, Orthogonal Histogram Modulators Contrast Response
Histogram Contrast Thresholds
The Result (Chubb et al., 1994): f CEL f CEL : 3 rd - through 7 th -order components
The New Technique: Tradeoff of 1 or 2 with f CEL 1 or 2 Amplitude f CEL Amplitude or
Experimental Details 3 Subjects Carefully linearized lookup table 200 ms display
Task: 4-AFC Shape Discrimination
Results: Three Thresholds
Results: Reconstructed Nonlinearity
Conclusions Full measurement of a novel nonlinearity Blackshot: Exquisite sensitivity to the darkest texels Thus, 3 dimensions of IID texture appearance: brightness, contrast and blackshot A striking precedent: Whittle (1986)