Andrew Watson

Speaker

Andrew Watson, PhD
Chief Vision Scientist
Apple Inc.

Date and Time

Monday, October 12, 2020
11 am - 12:30 pm

Location

Zoom

Dr. Watson's Abstract: The Chromatic Pyramid of Visibility

A fundamental limit to human vision is our ability to sense variations in light intensity over space and time. These limits have been formalized in the spatio-temporal contrast sensitivity function, which is now a foundation of vision science. This function has also proven to be the foundation of much applied vision science, providing guidance on spatial and temporal resolution for modern imaging technology. The Pyramid of Visibility is a simplified model of the human spatio-temporal luminance contrast sensitivity function (Watson, Andrew B.; Ahumada, Albert J. 2016). It posits that log sensitivity is a linear function of spatial frequency, temporal frequency, and log mean luminance. It is valid only away from the spatiotemporal frequency origin. It has recently been extended to peripheral vision to define the Field of Contrast Sensitivity (Watson 2018). Though very useful in a range of applications, the pyramid would benefit from an extension to the chromatic domain. In this talk I will describe our efforts to develop this extension. Among the issues we address are the choice of color space, the definition of color contrast, and how to combine sensitivities among luminance and chromatic pyramids.