Luminance and contrast in visual perception of time to collision.
Many animals avoid dark, approaching objects seen against a lighter background but show no or weaker reactions to stimuli with inverted contrast. We investigated whether human observers would respond differently to such stimuli in terms of estimated time-to-arrival. We varied luminances of an approaching, light or dark disk and a plain, grey background, and for several conditions, continuously adjusted calibrations so as to keep contrast and/or overall lightness constant. Since no effects were found, we conclude that humans are able to discard luminance and contrast for the task at hand. Generally, however, performance was affected by different, consecutive regimes of feedback: Initially, without feedback, observers responded inconsistently and much too late; they improved after correct feedback, and in a third block of trials with pseudo-random feedback, they responded increasingly early without reverting to the initial level of uncertainty. We discuss our findings with regard to implications for neural mechanisms, put them in the context of evolutionary considerations, and propose continuative animal behavioral studies.
['Landwehr|Klaus|K|', 'Brendel|Esther|E|', 'Hecht|Heiko|H|']
D000328:Adult D000704:Analysis of Variance D015350:Contrast Sensitivity D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008029:Lighting D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D009039:Motion Perception D010775:Photic Stimulation D011601:Psychophysics D013998:Time Perception D055815:Young Adult
Luminance Contrast Animal behavior Evolution Looming Time-to-collision