Individual Differences in Contrast Sensitivity Functions: The Lowest Spatial Frequency Channels

The number and nature of spatial channels tuned to low spatial frequencies in photopic vision was examined by measuring individual differences in the contrast sensitivity functions (CSFs) of seven visually normal adults. Stationary, 51 cd/m2, low spatial frequency sinusoidal gratings between 0.27 and 2.16 c/deg were used as stimuli. Correlational and factor analyses revealed that the set of CSFs contained only one statistical source of individual variability at spatial frequencies below 1 c/deg (tuned to a peak of about 0.8 c/deg), and a second source above 1 c/deg (tuned to about 1.4 c/deg). The sources ("factor-channels") mapped well onto the two coarsest spatial frequency channels from some existing computational models. The analysis was applied also to earlier data from 4-, 6- and 8-month-old infants, in which two sources of variability have been found below 1 c/deg [Peterzell, D. H., Werner, J. S. & Kaplan, P. S. (1995). Vision Research, 35, 961-980]. The combined results are consistent with the hypothesis that in photopic vision of the neonate, there are two channels with peak sensitivities below 1 c/deg, and that these channels shift their tuning from lower to higher spatial frequencies by about a factor of four during development.