Fig. 3. Contrast thresholds for direction discrimination as a function of pedestal contrast (measured as in Fig. 1) at 7.43 and 15 Hz. The moving test was presented in 0 or 180° spatial phase with the pedestal (specified at middle of motion). The dashed line in each panel shows the mean threshold of the observers measured without the pedestal. Pedestals of 2–3% contrast produce the greatest fac...

Measurement of the detection thresholds of patterns on pedestals of various kinds has the potential of providing insight into the mechanisms that mediate pattern vision. This study is concerned with chromoluminance patterns, that is, patterns that vary over space in luminance, chromaticity, or both. Contrast thresholds for 1 c/deg Gabor patterns (targets) were measured as a function of the cont...

Binocular rivalry elevates contrast increment thresholds for the detection of a transient stimulus presented to the suppressed eye, while thresholds measured during dominance are identical to those during monocular viewing (e.g. [Wales, R., & Fox, R. (1970). Increment detection thresholds during binocular rivalry suppression. Perception and Psychophysics, 8, 90-94]). It is well established that...

The effects of spatial cuing were measured for discrimination between an increment and a decrement on a target's pedestal contrast. Discrimination thresholds measured in the absence of a spatial cue were always higher than corresponding thresholds measured in the presence of a spatial cue, except when pedestal contrast was near zero. Uncued discrimination thresholds rose monotonically with pede...

A sandpile with two stable and two unstable ranges of slopes is presented as a minimal model for the study of H-mode pedestal formation and dynamics. Pedestals are observed to form and expand inward with increasing deposition. Transport bifurcation is not critical to pedestal formation, though the pedestal structure obtained with a second, hard stability boundary is qualitatively different from...

The Zoellner illusion is a geometric distortion occurring when nonorthogonal inducing lines appear to tilt veridically parallel bars. The retinal pathways contributing to such illusions are unknown. The goal of this experiment was to investigate the retinal origin of the illusion. This was accomplished by determining the contrast gain for illusion thresholds. The magnocellular (MC-) and parvoce...

Time-dependent two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations are carried out for tokamak plasmas with edge poloidal flow. Differently from conventional equilibrium theory, a density pedestal all around the edge is obtained when the poloidal velocity exceeds the poloidal sound speed. The outboard pedestal is induced by the transonic discontinuity, the inboard one by mass redistribution. The de...

The Joint European Torus (JET) high resolution Thomson scattering (HRTS) system measures radial electron temperature and density profiles. One of the key capabilities of this diagnostic is measuring the steep pressure gradient, termed the pedestal, at the edge of JET plasmas. The pedestal is susceptible to limiting instabilities, such as Edge Localised Modes (ELMs), characterised by a periodic ...

[1] We report on the results of a survey to document and characterize pedestal craters on Mars equatorward of 60 N and 65 S latitude. The identification of 2696 pedestal craters reveals a strong latitude dependence, with the vast majority found poleward of 33 N and 40 S. This latitudinal extent is correlated with many climate indicators consistent with the presence of an ice-rich substrate and ...