Naming speed, motor skill, and auditory temporal processing (ATP) are constructs that are important to reading and language. These variables require processing timing information inherent in the stimulus or processing stimuli rapidly. ATP deficits are found in individuals with reading impairments, but studies are conflicting regarding the relationship between reading and ATP. This study examine...

The masking effect of a Gaussian blob on detection of a Gaussian target was measured as a function of the position, disparity, width and polarity of the mask. The data reveal a large degree of disparity-specific masking that cannot be explained by the masking of its monocular constituents. At 5 degrees eccentricity, the masking range extends about +/-1 degrees around the lines of sight of the t...

A masker can reduce target intelligibility both by interfering with the target's peripheral representation ("energetic masking") and/or by causing more central interference ("informational masking"). Intelligibility generally improves with increasing spatial separation between two sources, an effect known as spatial release from masking (SRM). Here, SRM was measured using two concurrent sine-vo...

Light influences the daily patterning of behavior by entraining circadian rhythms and through its acute effects on activity levels (masking). Mechanisms of entrainment are quite similar across species, but masking can be very different. Specifically, in diurnal species, light generally increases locomotor activity (positive masking), and in nocturnal ones, it generally suppresses it (negative m...

Masking and crowding are major phenomena associated with contextual modulations, but the relationship between them remains unclear. We have recently shown that crowding is apparent in the fovea when the time available for processing is limited, pointing to the strong relationship between crowding in the spatial and temporal domains. Models of crowding emphasize the size (acuity) of the target a...

Orientation masking induces changes of discrimination thresholds and perceived orientation. Studies on alignment discrimination of Vernier stimuli concentrated on masking induced changes of discrimination thresholds, without considering possible changes of perceived orientation and/or alignment of the two-line segments. Measuring both parameters in an orientation discrimination task, we confirm...

In this paper we propose an improved unsharp masking algorithm. Contrast enhancement and image sharpness is required in many applications. Unsharp masking is a classical tool for sharpening an image. Unsharp masking algorithm is used for the exploratory data model as a unified framework. Proposed algorithms have three issues: 1) Contrast is increased and image is sharp by means of individual tr...

Phase locking between probe and masker was used in a series of pure-tone masking experiments. The masker was a stationary sine wave of variable frequency; the probe a fixed-frequency tone burst. We have observed that for small frequency separation the masking behaves asymmetrically around the probe frequency. This asymmetry depends on intensity. For a 1-kHz probe at low stimulus levels there is...

Older and younger readers read sentences in which target words were masked 40 to 60 ms after fixation onset. Masking only the target word caused more disruption than did masking each word in the sentence, and this effect was stronger for the younger readers than for the older readers. Although older readers had longer eye fixations than did younger readers, the results indicated that the maskin...

Image bias is a usual phenomenon in MR imaging when using surface coils. It complicates the interpretation as well as the algorithmic postprocessing of such data. We introduce a bias correction algorithm based on homomorphic unsharp masking (HUM) that is applicable on a broad range of image types (as long as foreand background is separable), simple, fast and requires only minimal user interacti...