Greater sensitivity in separation discrimination with closer spacing of separation levels tested.

Abstract

We explored the effects of spacing in the levels of separation tested in a separation discrimination task. Participants indicated, for pairs of test circles, whether the separation between them was greater than a standard separation. A critical set of equally-spaced separation levels was tested in two conditions. In one condition additional separation levels were interleaved between the critical levels. In the other condition additional separation levels were not interleaved. Overall, the same average level and range of levels were tested in the two conditions, and the levels tested were equally spaced in both conditions. Critically, the levels tested were more closely spaced in one condition than the other. The sensitivity of the discrimination was greater in the condition with the more as opposed to less-closely spaced levels of separation. We suggest an explanation under which separation is assessed from the number of “separation fields” between the points at which the test stimuli register and under which the separation fields are smaller or more densely distributed when the levels of separation tested are more as opposed to less-closely spaced.