Monophasic Temporal Modulation Increases Apparent Spatial Frequency

Abstract

There are three different types of flicker—monophasic, diphasic, and polyphasic—and they have different spatial consequences with gratings. Monophasic flicker does not alter the spatial phase in time, but spatial phase changes are caused by the other two types. The effects of sinusoidal monophasic flicker on the apparent spatial frequency of sinusoidal gratings were studied in the present experiments by simultaneous spatial-frequency matches. Monophasic temporal modulation increased apparent spatial frequency. The stimulus conditions for producing a maximum effect were (a) a relatively low spatial frequency, (b) a relatively high level of light adaptation, (c) an intermediate temporal frequency (4–8 Hz), and (d) an intermediate contrast. The largest apparent increases exceeded 30%. The magnitude of the spatial effect was correlated with data on temporal resolution and contrast sensitivity collected under the same conditions. The spatial effect had a high correlation with the critical flicker-fusion frequency, and the contrast-sensitivity enhancements caused by the flicker followed functions similar to those of the spatial effect when the spatial frequency and the level of adaptation were varied. We interpret the spatial effect of low-frequency monophasic flicker as evidence that there are channels for spatial frequency in human vision whose spatial tuning depends on the spatial distribution of sensitivity in the receptive fields of single neurones. Flicker at intermediate temporal frequencies decreases the functional effectiveness of centre—surround antagonism, and makes channels otherwise responsive to high spatial frequencies responsive to low spatial frequencies. As the central decoding of channel outputs can be assumed invariant, an increase in the apparent spatial frequency follows from the change of tuning properties if the channels mediate the perception of spatial frequency. An analysis of the variability of spatial frequency matches indicated that spatial frequency discrimination, if considered in relative terms, is independent of the spatial frequency, the mean luminance, and the contrast of gratings within broad ranges of variation.