[visionlist] Visual search: spatial frequency

[Todd S. Horowitz]

At 5:24 PM -0600 2/19/07, Raymond Dye Jr wrote:
>A student has come to me with a potential Master's thesis study 
>examining the question of whether or not the presence of a unique 
>spatial frequency can support a parallel scan of space.  She 
>proposes to present compound gratings of 2, 5, 15 patches (presented 
>in a circular array) in which the target consists of 2, 5, and 12 
>cycles per degree with distractors consisting of only 2 and 12 c/deg 
>versus a target of 2 and 12 c/degree amongst distractors of 2, 5, 
>and 12 c/d.   She proposes to measure reaction time versus set size 
>in one experiment, then fix the duration at 50 ms and measure d'. 
>My own background is in spatial hearing, and I am wondering whether 
>of not such an experiment has been conducted in the past.  It seems 
>too obvious for it not to have been done, be we cannot locate it in 
>the literature.
>
>Best regards,
>Raymond Dye

I don't know if that exact experiment has been done. There have been 
a number of papers on the use of spatial frequency information in 
visual search:

An ideal observer with channels versus feature-independent processing
of spatial frequency and orientation in visual search
performance. Shimozaki, Steven S.; Eckstein, Miguel P.; Abbey, Craig K.;
Journal of the Optical Society of America, A, Optics, Image Science &
Vision, Vol 20(12), Dec 2003. pp. 2197-2215.

Visual search: Spatial frequency and orientation. Moraglia,
Giampaolo; Perceptual and Motor Skills, Vol 69(2), Oct 1989. pp. 675-689.

The combination of spatial frequency and orientation is effortlessly
perceived. Sagi, Dov; Perception & Psychophysics, Vol 43(6), Jun 1988.
pp. 601-603.

Todd

-- 
Todd S. Horowitz, Ph.D.
Instructor in Ophthalmology
Harvard Medical School

Visual Attention Laboratory
Brigham & Women's Hospital
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