Lateral Interactions in Brightness Perception: Psychophysics and Modeling

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The visual system of humans is very good at perceiving different levels of brightness in the appearance of objects in the environments, even under varying conditions of lighting. Brightness perception of a single surface can be affected quite strongly by the brightness of nearby surfaces, as often shown by optical illusions. A classic example of 'brightness induction' is when identical gray patches can be made to appear either brighter or darker depending on the brightness of the areas surrounding them. Such brightness illusions show how different areas of the visual scene can interact in creating a visual stimulus. We still do not understand the mechanisms of lateral interactions underlying these perceptions, despite a number of theories over more than a century. This work involves theoretical modeling and psychophysical measurements from human observers. A particular new model has been developed to account for a whole group of visual effects, including some novel brightness configurations. The model now incorporates non-linearities in visual responses and rules for combinations, and is tested for validity by how well the perceptual results fit the predictions. These results quantifying perceptual variations in brightness are very important for visual neuroscience, because they provide insights into how neurobiological networks of the eye and the visual cortex in the brain might produce conscious perceptions. The impact also will extend beyond visual neuroscience to perceptual psychology, and could be important in the design of visual displays and in developing artificial visual systems.