Stochastic Resonance in Time-to-Contact Judgments

Abstract

Stochastic resonance (SR) is a counterintuitive phenomenon in which additive noise enhances performance of a nonlinear system. Previous studies demonstrated SR effect on human tactile sensitivity by adding noise of same modality and cross modality. Similarly, enhancement of human hearing through additive noise has been studied. In this study, we investigate the effect of noise in visual perception, specifically time-to-contact (TTC) judgments. This study explores four research questions: (1) Does noise help in TTC judgments? (2) How does noise affect speed and accuracy of TTC judgments? (3) Does cross modal noise help in TTC judgments? (4) How does cross modal noise affect speed and accuracy of TTC judgments? Through simulation, we show that noise in optical cue can enhance weak signals. We also demonstrate that noise can improve speed of TTC judgments at the expense of accuracy. Similarly, we demonstrate SR by adding noise of cross modality. These findings provide plausible hypotheses regarding how much noise should be added to enhance TTC judgments.