Local luminance effect on spatial summation in the foveal vision and its implication on image artifact classification

We investigated the spatial summation effect on pedestals with difference luminance. The targets were luminance modulation defined by Gaussian functions. The size of the Gaussian spot was determined by the scale parameter (standard deviation, σ) which ranged from 0.13°to 1.04°. The local luminance pedestal (2° radius) had mean luminance ranged from 2.9 to 29cd/m2. The no-pedestal condition had a mean luminance 58cd/m2. We used a QUEST adaptive threshold seeking procedure and 2AFC paradigm to measure the target contrast threshold at different target sizes (spatial summation curve) and pedestal luminance. The target threshold decreased as the target spatial extent increased with a slope -0.5 on log-log coordinates. However, if the target size was large enough (σ>0.3°), there was little, if any, threshold reduction as the target size further increased. The spatial summation curve had the same shape at all pedestal luminance levels. The effect of the pedestal was to shift the summation curve vertically on log-log coordinates. Hence, the size and the luminance effects on target detection are separable. The visibility of the Gaussian spot can be modeled by a function with a form f(L)*g(σ) where f(L) is a function of local luminance and g(σ) is a function of size.