Symmetry detection across the visual field

Humans are extremely sensitive to symmetry when it is foveated but sensitivity drops as a symmetrical region of a fixed size is moved into the periphery. A psychophysical study was undertaken to determine if eccentricity dependent sensitivity loss could be overcome by magnifying stimuli at each eccentricity (E) by a factor F = 1 + E/E2, where E2 indicates the eccentricity at which the size of a stimulus must be doubled, relative to a foveal standard, to achieve equivalent performance. The psychophysical task required subjects to decide on each trial in which of two intervals a symmetrical stimulus had been presented. Stimuli were presented at a range of sizes and eccentricities (0 to 8 degrees) and the probability of a correct discrimination was computed for each condition. In Experiment 1, thresholds were measured with stimuli set to maximum available contrast and, in Experiment 2, stimuli were presented at a constant multiple of contrast detection threshold. In both experiments, a single scaling function removed most of the eccentricity dependent variation from the data. However, the E2 value recovered for one subject tested in both experiments was larger by about 65% when stimuli were not equated for visibility. We conclude that symmetry detection can be equated across a range of eccentricities by scaling stimuli with an E2 in the range of 0.88 to 1.38 degrees. Failure to equate for visibility across all viewing conditions may result in an inflated estimate of E2.