Frequency Doubling in Visual Responses*†

Abstract

This paper reports an unexpected visual phenomenon. When a wide, photopic stimulus field is sinusoidally modulated in both space and time, over a certain frequency range the apparent spatial frequency of the stimulus is doubled. In its original form, the (deLange) flicker-fusion model which has been accepted by the author and others cannot account for this result. But it can be explained by assuming that there is a second (low-pass) filtering operation which follows the nonlinear (brightness) response of the visual system, rather than preceding it. If this hypothesis is correct, then the frequency-doubling effect is the result of neural mechanisms which are more central than the locus of flicker fusion.