Photometric compliance of tablet screens and retro-illuminated acuity charts as visual acuity measurement devices

Mobile technology is increasingly used to measure visual acuity. Standards for chart-based acuity tests specify photometric requirements for luminance, optotype contrast and luminance uniformity. Manufacturers provide some photometric data but little is known about tablet performance for visual acuity testing. This study photometrically characterised seven tablet computers (iPad, Apple inc.) and three ETDRS (Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study) visual acuity charts with room lights on and off, and compared findings with visual acuity measurement standards. Tablet screen luminance and contrast were measured using nine points across a black and white checkerboard test screen at five arbitrary brightness levels. ETDRS optotypes and adjacent white background luminance and contrast were measured. All seven tablets (room lights off) exceeded the most stringent requirement for mean luminance (≥ 120 cd/m2) providing the nominal brightness setting was above 50%. All exceeded contrast requirement (Weber ≥ 90%) regardless of brightness setting, and five were marginally below the required luminance uniformity threshold (Lmin/Lmax ≥ 80%). Re-assessing three tablets with room lights on made little difference to mean luminance or contrast, and improved luminance uniformity to exceed the threshold. The three EDTRS charts (room lights off) had adequate mean luminance (≥ 120 cd/m2) and Weber contrast (≥ 90%), but all three charts failed to meet the luminance uniformity standard (Lmin/Lmax ≥ 80%). Two charts were operating beyond manufacturer’s recommended lamp replacement schedule. With room lights on, chart mean luminance and Weber contrast increased, but two charts still had inadequate luminance uniformity. Tablet computers showed less inter-device variability, higher contrast, and better luminance uniformity than charts in both lights-on and lights-off environments, providing brightness setting was >50%. Overall, iPad tablets matched or marginally out-performed ETDRS charts in terms of photometric compliance with high contrast acuity standards

Lightness constancy: ratio invariance and luminance profile

The term simultaneous lightness constancy describes the capacity of the visual system to perceive equal reflecting surfaces as having the same lightness despite lying in different illumination fields. In some cases, however, a lightness constancy failure occurs; that is, equal reflecting surfaces appear different in lightness when differently illuminated. An open question is whether the luminance profile of the illumination edges affects simultaneous lightness constancy even when the ratio invariance property of the illumination edges is preserved. To explore this issue, we ran two experiments by using bipartite illumination displays. Both the luminance profile of an illumination edge and the luminance ratio amplitude between the illumination fields were manipulated. Results revealed that the simultaneous lightness constancy increases when the luminance profile of the illumination edge is gradual (rather than sharp) and homogeneous (rather than inhomogeneous), whereas it decreases when the luminance ratio between the illumination fields is enlarged. The results are interpreted according to the layer decomposition schema, stating that the visual system splits the luminance into perceived lightness and apparent illumination components. We suggest that illumination edges having gradual and homogeneous luminance profiles facilitate the luminance decomposition process, whereas wide luminance ratios impede it

Television noise reduction device

A noise reduction system that divides the color video signal into its luminance and chrominance components is reported. The luminance component of a given frame is summed with the luminance component of at least one preceding frame which was stored on a disc recorder. The summation is carried out so as to achieve a signal amplitude equivalent to that of the original signal. The averaged luminance signal is then recombined with the chrominance signal to achieve a noise-reduced television signal

Luminance cues constrain chromatic blur discrimination in natural scene stimuli

Introducing blur into the color components of a natural scene has very little effect on its percept, whereas blur introduced into the luminance component is very noticeable. Here we quantify the dominance of luminance information in blur detection and examine a number of potential causes. We show that the interaction between chromatic and luminance information is not explained by reduced acuity or spatial resolution limitations for chromatic cues, the effective contrast of the luminance cue, or chromatic and achromatic statistical regularities in the images. Regardless of the quality of chromatic information, the visual system gives primacy to luminance signals when determining edge location. In natural viewing, luminance information appears to be specialized for detecting object boundaries while chromatic information may be used to determine surface properties

Channelized hotelling observers for signal detection in stack-mode reading of volumetric images on medical displays with slow response time

Volumetric medical images are commonly read in stack-browsing mode. However, previous studies suggest that slow temporal response of medical liquid crystal displays may degrade the diagnostic accuracy (lesion detectability) at browsing rates as low as 10 frames per second (fps). Recently, a multi-slice channelized Hotelling observer (msCHO) model was proposed to estimate the detection performance in 3D images. This implementation of the msCHO restricted the analysis to the luminance of a display pixel at the end of the frame time (end-of-frame luminance) while ignoring the luminance transition within the frame time (intra-frame luminance). Such an approach fails to differentiate between, for example, the commonly found case of two displays with different temporal profiles of luminance as long as their end-of-frame luminance levels are the same. In order to overcome this limitation of the msCHO, we propose a new upsampled msCHO (umsCHO) which acts on images obtained using both the intra-frame and the end-of-frame luminance information. The two models are compared on a set of synthesized 3D images for a range of browsing rates (16.67, 25 and 50 fps). Our results demonstrate that, depending on the details of the luminance transition profiles, neglecting the intra-frame luminance information may lead to over- or underestimation of lesion detectability. Therefore, we argue that using the umsCHO rather than msCHO model is more appropriate for estimating the detection performance in the stack-browsing mode

Influence of temperature on the steady state and transient luminance of an OLED display

In this paper, the influence of temperature on the luminance of an organic light-emitting device (OLED) display is investigated. Luminance, temperature, and power measurements are executed on a 55-in white-red-green-blue active-matrix OLED display with a resolution of 1920 × 1080 and an oxide-Thin-film-Transistor (TFT) backplane, under a controlled, static temperature environment. The measurements indicate a strong influence of temperature on the luminance of the display, resulting from the temperature dependence of both the TFT and the OLED. The influence of temperature on the luminance of an OLED display is also investigated in a dynamic context. Measurements show that temperature changes resulting from losses in the display have an important influence on the luminance stability of the display. The measurements linking luminance and temperature in a static temperature environment allow estimating the change in luminance in a dynamic context. Finally, this paper presents the results of a number of experiments that were set up to show scenarios in which the temperature dependence of the display's luminance has a direct negative impact on the picture quality of the display. The results of this work show that the thermal behavior of an OLED display must be taken into account when working towards a high-performing OLED display. © 2005-2012 IEEE

Texture Segregation in Chromatic Element-Arrangement Patterns

We compare the perceived segregation of element-arrangement patterns1 which are composed of two types of squanes arranged in vertical stripes in the top and bottom regions and in a checkerboard in the middle region. The squares in a pattern are either equal in luminance and differing in hue or equal in hue and differing in luminance. Perceived segregation of squares differing in hue is not predicted by their rated similarity, but rather by the square-root of the sum of the squares of the differences in the outputs of the L-M and L+M-S opponent channels. Adaptation to the background luminance affects judgements of perceived segregation but does not affect judgments of perceived similarity. For a given background luminance, perceived segregation is a linear function of cone contrasts. Perceived hue similarity is instead a linear function of cone excitations across the background luminances. High and low luminance backgrounds decrease the perceived segregation of patterns differing in luminance. A high luminance achromatic background decreases the perceived segregation of patterns differing in hue but a low luminance achromatic background does not. The results indicate that the adaptation luminance affects the contribution of luminance differences between the two types of squares to perceived segregation but not the contribution of hue differences. For element-arrangement patterns composed of squares of equal luminance that differ in hue, perceived segregation is associated with differences in the perceived brightness of the hues. The results are consistent with the findings that the perceived segregation in element-arrangement patterns is primarily a function of the early visual mechanisms that encode pattern differences prior to the specification of the forms of the squares and their properties.Office of Naval Research (N00014-91-J-4100, N00014-94-1-0597, N00014-95-1-0409); Advanced Research Projects Agency (N00014-92-J-4015); Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-92-J-0334); National Science Foundation (IIU-94-01659

When are abrupt onsets found efficiently in complex visual search? : evidence from multi-element asynchronous dynamic search

Previous work has found that search principles derived from simple visual search tasks do not necessarily apply to more complex search tasks. Using a Multielement Asynchronous Dynamic (MAD) visual search task, in which high numbers of stimuli could either be moving, stationary, and/or changing in luminance, Kunar and Watson (M. A Kunar & D. G. Watson, 2011, Visual search in a Multi-element Asynchronous Dynamic (MAD) world, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Vol 37, pp. 1017-1031) found that, unlike previous work, participants missed a higher number of targets with search for moving items worse than for static items and that there was no benefit for finding targets that showed a luminance onset. In the present research, we investigated why luminance onsets do not capture attention and whether luminance onsets can ever capture attention in MAD search. Experiment 1 investigated whether blinking stimuli, which abruptly offset for 100 ms before reonsetting-conditions known to produce attentional capture in simpler visual search tasks-captured attention in MAD search, and Experiments 2-5 investigated whether giving participants advance knowledge and preexposure to the blinking cues produced efficient search for blinking targets. Experiments 6-9 investigated whether unique luminance onsets, unique motion, or unique stationary items captured attention. The results found that luminance onsets captured attention in MAD search only when they were unique, consistent with a top-down unique feature hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)

When are abrupt onsets found efficiently in complex visual search? : evidence from multi-element asynchronous dynamic search

Previous work has found that search principles derived from simple visual search tasks do not necessarily apply to more complex search tasks. Using a Multielement Asynchronous Dynamic (MAD) visual search task, in which high numbers of stimuli could either be moving, stationary, and/or changing in luminance, Kunar and Watson (M. A Kunar & D. G. Watson, 2011, Visual search in a Multi-element Asynchronous Dynamic (MAD) world, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Vol 37, pp. 1017-1031) found that, unlike previous work, participants missed a higher number of targets with search for moving items worse than for static items and that there was no benefit for finding targets that showed a luminance onset. In the present research, we investigated why luminance onsets do not capture attention and whether luminance onsets can ever capture attention in MAD search. Experiment 1 investigated whether blinking stimuli, which abruptly offset for 100 ms before reonsetting-conditions known to produce attentional capture in simpler visual search tasks-captured attention in MAD search, and Experiments 2-5 investigated whether giving participants advance knowledge and preexposure to the blinking cues produced efficient search for blinking targets. Experiments 6-9 investigated whether unique luminance onsets, unique motion, or unique stationary items captured attention. The results found that luminance onsets captured attention in MAD search only when they were unique, consistent with a top-down unique feature hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)