Contrast (vision)

About: Contrast (vision) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10379 publications have been published within this topic receiving 221480 citations.

Standard measures of visual acuity do not predict drivers' recognition performance under day or night conditions

Abstract: PURPOSE.: This study investigated whether visual acuity or contrast sensitivity, measured under a range of luminance conditions, could predict drivers' recognition performance under real-world day and night road conditions. METHODS.: Twenty-four participants, comprising three age groups (younger, mean = 21.5 years; middle-aged, mean = 46.6 years; and older, mean = 71.9 years), drove around a 1.8-km closed road circuit under day and nighttime conditions. At night, headlight intensity was varied over 1.5 log-units by ND filters mounted on the headlights. Participants drove around the circuit under five light conditions (daytime and four at night) and were asked to report relevant targets, including road signs, large low-contrast road obstacles, and pedestrians who wore retroreflective markings on either the torso or the limb joints (creating "biological motion"). Real-world recognition performance was measured as percent correct recognition and, in the case of low-contrast road obstacles, avoided. Clinical vision tests included high-contrast visual acuity and Pelli-Robson letter contrast sensitivity measured at four luminance levels. RESULTS.: Real-world recognition performance of all age groups was significantly degraded under low light conditions, and this impairment was greater for the older participants. These changes in drivers' recognition performance were more strongly predicted by contrast sensitivity than visual acuity measured under standard photopic conditions. Interestingly, contrast sensitivity was highly correlated with visual acuity measured under low-luminance conditions. Further analyses showed that recognition performance while driving is better predicted by combinations of two tests: either 1) photopic visual acuity and photopic contrast sensitivity, or 2) photopic and mesopic visual acuity. CONCLUSIONS.: These findings confirm that visibility is seriously degraded during night driving and that the problem is greater for older drivers. These changes in real-world recognition performance were better predicted by a standard test of contrast sensitivity than by visual acuity. Still better predictions can be obtained by the use of two vision tests. The implications of these findings for driver licensing standards are discussed.

Impairment of contrast sensitivity function (CSF) as a measure of disability glare.

Abstract: A method for quantitative measurements of disability glare in clinical practice is presented. Glare is induced by a circular fluorescent tube which surrounds a sinusoidal grating displayed on a monitor. The threshold contrast that is needed for detection of the grating is measured with and without presence of the glare light. This is repeated for several different spatial frequencies. The discrepancy between the contrast sensitivity function (CSF) obtained with and without glare light was used to calculate the glare score (n) as a measure of disability glare. This was done for normals and cataract patients. The results show that an increasing glare score is related to an increase in turbidity of the optic media, while visual acuity had a weak correlation to the glare score. We also studied the relation glare score versus luminance and found that normals had a glare score that was almost independent of luminance level, while the cataract patients had a marked decrease in glare sensitivity when the luminance decreased. Most patients had a glare score that corresponded to their glare problems. These findings indicate a potential for using this psychophysical disability glare test method in industry, transport, and clinical ophthalmology. Some sources of methodological error inherent in the test method are evaluated and discussed.

Physics-based approach to color image enhancement in poor visibility conditions

Abstract: Degradation of images by the atmosphere is a familiar problem. For example, when terrain is imaged from a forward-looking airborne camera, the atmosphere degradation causes a loss in both contrast and color information. Enhancement of such images is a difficult task because of the complexity in restoring both the luminance and the chrominance while maintaining good color fidelity. One particular problem is the fact that the level of contrast loss depends strongly on wavelength. A novel method is presented for the enhancement of color images. This method is based on the underlying physics of the degradation process, and the parameters required for enhancement are estimated from the image itself.