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Updated: Jul 31, 2026

Measuring Spatially- and Directionally-varying Light Scattering from Biological Material
Published on: May 20, 2013
Monocular lustre from flicker
1Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 92093-0109, La Jolla, CA, USA. sanstis@ucsd.edu
Abstract:
A spot that flickers at 16 Hz between two luminance levels (on a grey surround) has an appearance of metallic lustre, which we call 'monocular lustre'. Binocular and monocular lustre were measured in comparable conditions by a rating procedure, and both were reported only when the light and dark values of the flickering (or binocularly fused) spot straddled the surround luminance, so that the spot was alternately brighter and darker than the surround. We attribute lustre to competition between ON and OFF visual pathways.
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