SUPRATHRESHOLD TEMPORAL-FREQUENCY DISCRIMINATION IN THE FOVEA AND THEPERIPHERY

To address the question of whether temporal-frequency information in t he fovea and the periphery is processed in fundamentally different way s we measured temporal-frequency-discrimination thresholds for spatiot emporally narrow-band stimuli presented at suprathreshold contrast. Te mporal-frequency-discrimination thresholds are similar (with in a fact or of 2) at the fovea and at 30-degrees in the periphery. We use a lin e-element approach and three spatiotemporally separable temporal mecha nisms to model foveal and peripheral data with the same degree of fide lity. These findings suggest that not only are the front-end temporal mechanisms in the fovea and periphery likely to be similar but also th e way in which their outputs are combined at more central sites is the same.