Equivalence of Temporal Frequency and Modulation Depth for Flicker Response Suppression: Preliminary Results

Abstract

For a wide range of temporal frequencies and modulation depths, stimulus conditions can be chosen so that flicker threshold decreases abruptly (i.e. flicker response becomes enhanced) with small increases of adaptation field illuminance [1]. At test illuminances sufficiently above this reduced flicker threshold, flicker again becomes subthreshold [1]. The adaptation field illuninances at which flicker response is enhanced or suppressed depend strongly on the temporal frequency and modulation depth of the test [1]. In the present report, data are presented to show that for both enhancement and suppression, reductions of modulation depth for 11 Hz stimuli can be operationally equivalent to increases of temporal frequency for fully modulated, higher frequency flicker.