Visual Psychophysics: From Laboratory to Theory (Mit Press)

A comprehensive treatment of the skills and techniques needed for visual psychophysics, from basic tools to sophisticated data analysis.

Vision is one of the most active areas in biomedical research, and visual psychophysical techniques are a foundational methodology for this research enterprise. Visual psychophysics, which studies the relationship between the physical world and human behavior, is a classical field of study that has widespread applications in modern vision science. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, this textbook provides a comprehensive treatment of visual psychophysics, teaching not only basic techniques but also sophisticated data analysis methodologies and theoretical approaches. It begins with practical information about setting up a vision lab and goes on to discuss the creation, manipulation, and display of visual images; timing and integration of displays with measurements of brain activities and other relevant techniques; experimental designs; estimation of behavioral functions; and examples of psychophysics in applied and clinical settings.

The book's treatment of experimental designs presents the most commonly used psychophysical paradigms, theory-driven psychophysical experiments, and the analysis of these procedures in a signal-detection theory framework. The book discusses the theoretical underpinnings of data analysis and scientific interpretation, presenting data analysis techniques that include model fitting, model comparison, and a general framework for optimized adaptive testing methods. It includes many sample programs in Matlab with functions from Psychtoolbox, a free toolbox for real-time experimental control. Once students and researchers have mastered the material in this book, they will have the skills to apply visual psychophysics to cutting-edge vision science.

Zhong-Lin Lu is Chief Scientist, Associate Provost for Sciences, Director of the NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science, Professor of Neural Science and Psychology at NYU Shanghai, as well as Professor of Neural Science and Psychology and Global Network Professor at NYU. He is coauthor of Visual Psychophysics: From Laboratory to Theory (MIT Press).

Barbara Dosher is Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. She is coauthor of Visual Psychophysics: From Laboratory to Theory (MIT Press).