The channel for detecting contrast modulation also responds to density modulation (or vice versa)

Abstract

In textures composed of black and white dots, we modulated dot density and/or dot contrast in one direction of visual space. Just as Mulligan and MacLeod (Vision Research 28 (1988) 503–519) found a strong reciprocity between density and luminance for dots viewed against a darker background, we found a strong reciprocity between density and contrast: detection thresholds for in-phase modulations of density and contrast were 30% – 55% lower than detection thresholds for density and contrast modulations that were 180° out of phase. These findings support the existence of at least one psychophysical channel that is excited by both density modulations and contrast modulations. A good, quantitative fit to our data can be obtained with a two-channel model.