Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T01:13:12.942Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Contrast discrimination: A model and a hypothesis concerning the role of cholinergic modulation in contrast perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2009

Andrew T. Smith
Andrew T. Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway College, University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, England
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A model of contrast discrimination performance in human observers is developed and then extended to cover effects on performance of anticholinergic drugs. It is shown that it is necessary to assume that neural noise increases at high spatial frequencies in order to provide a satisfactory model of variations in discrimination performance with spatial frequency. The model results are compared with the results of empirical studies in which the effects of the muscarinic antagonist scopolamine (hyoscine) on contrast discrimination performance in human observers are examined. The purpose of the pharmacological work is to test the hypothesis that the differential contrast gain found psychophysically at different spatial frequencies might reflect differential facilitation by extrinsic cholinergic neurons. Contrast discrimination and contrast increment detection are found to be impaired by scopolamine in a manner that depends on both spatial frequency and base contrast. By comparing the empirical data with the predictions of the model, it is concluded that contrast constancy may reflect differential cholinergic modulation.

Keywords

Contrast discriminationContrast constancyAcetylcholineScopolamine
Type
Research Articles
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 13 , Issue 5 , September 1996 , pp. 873 - 884
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beaulieu, C., & Somogyi, P. (1991). Enrichment of cholinergic synaptic terminals on GABAergic neurons and coexistence of immunoreactive GABA and choline acetyltransferase in the same synaptic terminals in the striate cortex of the cat. Journal of Comparative Neurology 304, 666–680.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bradley, A. & Ohzawa, I. (1986). A comparison of contrast detection and discrimination. Vision Research 26, 991–997.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Broks, P., Preston, G.C., Traub, M., Poppleton, P., Ward, C. & Stahl, S.M. (1988). Modelling dementia: Effects of scopolamine on memory and attention. Neuropsychologia 26, 685–700.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burton, C.J. (1981). Contrast discrimination by the human visual system. Biological Cybernetics 40, 27–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dean, A.F. (1981). The variability of discharge of simple cells in the cat striate cortex. Experimental Brain Research 44, 437–440.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eysel, U.T., Pape, H.-C. & VanSchayck, R. (1986). Excitatory and differential disinhibitory actions of acetylcholine in the lateral geniculate nucleus of the cat. Journal of Physiology (London) 370, 233–254.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eysel, U.T., Pape, H.-C. & VanSchayck, R. (1987). Contributions of inhibitory mechanisms to the shift response of X and Y cells in the cat lateral geniculate nucleus. Journal of Physiology (London) 388, 199–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foley, J.M. & Legge, G.E. (1981). Contrast detection and nearthreshold discrimination in human vision. Vision Research 21, 1041–1053.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Georgeson, M.A. (1987). Temporal properties of spatial contrast vision. Vision Research 27, 765–780.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Georgeson, M.A. (1991). Contrast overconstancy. Journal of the Optical Society of America A 8, 579–586.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Georgeson, M.A. & Shackleton, T.M. (1994). Perceived contrast of gratings and plaids: Non-linear summation across oriented filters. Vision Research 34, 1061–1075.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Georgeson, M.A. & Sullivan, G.D. (1975). Contrast constancy: Deblurring in human vision by spatial frequency channels. Journal of Physiology (London) 252, 627–656.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, D.M. & Swets, J.A. (1966). Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Hartveit, E. & Heggelund, P. (1994). Response variability of single cells in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus of the cat. Comparison with retinal input and effect of brain stem stimulation. Journal of Neurophysiology 12, 1278–1289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hu, B., Steriade, M. & Deschenes, M. (1989). The effects of brain-stem peribrachial stimulation of neurons of the lateral geniculate nucleus. Neuroscience 31, 13–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hu, Q., Klein, S.A. & Carney, T. (1993). Can sinusoidal vernier acuity be predicted by contrast discrimination? Vision Research 33, 1241–1258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Legge, G.E. & Foley, J.M. (1980). Contrast masking in human vision. Journal of the Optical Society of America A 70, 1458–1471.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Legge, G.E., Kersten, D. & Burgess, A.E. (1987). Contrast discrimination in noise. Journal of the Optical Society of America A 4, 391–404.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewandowski, M.H., Muller, C.M. & Singer, W. (1993). Reticular facilitation of cat visual cortical responses is mediated by nicotinic and muscarinic cholinergic mechanisms. Experimental Brain Research 96, 1–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCormick, D. & Prince, D.A. (1987). Actions of acetylcholine in the guinea-pig and cat medial and lateral geniculate nuclei, in vitro. Journal of Physiology (London) 392, 147–165.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Metherate, R., Tremblay, N. & Dykes, R.W. (1988). Transient and prolonged effects of acetylcholine on responsiveness of cat somato-sensory cortical neurons. Journal of Neurophysiology 59, 1253–1276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metherate, R. & Weinberger, N.M. (1989). Acetylcholine produces stimulus-specific receptive field alterations in cat auditory cortex. Brain Research 480, 372–377.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Müller, C.M. & Singer, W. (1989). Acetylcholine-induced inhibition in the cat visual cortex is mediated by a GABAergic mechanism. Brain Research 487, 335–342.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, P.C. & Sillito, A.M. (1991). Cholinergic enhancement of direction selectivity in the visual cortex of the cat. Neuroscience 40, 13–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nachmias, J. & Sansbury, R. (1974). Grating contrast: Discrimination may be better than detection. Vision Research 14, 1039–1042.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parkinson, D., Kratz, K.E. & Daw, N.W. (1988). Evidence for a nicotinic component to the actions of acetylcholine in cat visual cortex. Experimental Brain Research 73, 553–568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prusky, G.T., Shaw, C. & Cynader, M.S. (1987). Nicotine receptors are located on lateral geniculate nucleus terminals in cat visual cortex. Brain Research 412, 131–138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sato, H., Hata, Y., Hagihara, K. & Tsumoto, T. (1987 a). Effects of cholinergic depletion on neuron activities in the cat visual cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology 58, 781–794.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sato, H., Hata, Y., Masui, H. & Tsumoto, T. (1987 b). A functional role of cholinergic innervation to neurons in the cat visual cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology 58, 765–780.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sillito, A.M. & Kemp, J.A. (1983). Cholinergic modulation of the functional organization of the cat visual cortex. Brain Research 289, 143–155.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sillito, A.M., Kemp, J.A. & Berardi, N. (1983). The cholinergic influence on the function of the cat dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN). Brain Research 280, 299–307.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sitaram, N., Weingartner, H. & Gillin, J.C. (1978). Human serial learning: Enhancement with arecholine and choline and impairment with scopolamine. Science 201, 274–276.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, A.T. & Baker-Short, C.M. (1993). Pharmacological separation of mechanisms contributing to contrast sensitivity. Visual Neuroscience 10, 1073–1079.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, A.T., Early, F. & Jones, G.H. (1990). Comparison of the effects of Alzheimer's disease, normal aging and scopolamine on human transient visual evoked potentials. Psychopharmacology 102, 535–543.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, M.M. & Creelman, C.D. (1967). PEST: Efficient estimates on probability functions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 41, 782–787.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tolhurst, D.J., Movshon, J.A. & Dean, A.F. (1983). The statistical reliability of signals in single neurons in cat and monkey visual cortex. Vision Research 23, 775–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tolhurst, D.J., Movshon, J.A. & Thompson, I.D. (1981). The dependence of response amplitude and variance of cat visual cortical neurones on stimulus contrast. Experimental Brain Research 41, 414–419.Google ScholarPubMed
Vogels, R., Spileers, W. & Orban, G.A. (1989). The response variability of striate cortical neurons in the behaving monkey. Experimental Brain Research 77, 432–436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weibull, W. (1951). A statistical distribution function of wide applicability. Journal of Applied Mechanics 18, 292–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, H.R. (1980). A transducer function for threshold and supra-threshold spatial vision. Biological Cybernetics 38, 171–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar