Rhea Eskew

Sponsor: NSF

Time-locked psychophysics: speeded responses to visual stimuli

The project will use variations on a classic method called response time (RT) measurement, which has human participants respond as quickly as possible to the presentation of carefully-controlled visual patterns.  One goal is to demonstrate that the fastest RTs are triggered by the very early responses in the photoreceptors of the retina of the eye. Two parallel pathways in the visual system called ON and OFF pathways, generate opposite-polarity responses. A second goal is to test the hypothesis that these two pathways can be measured and studied separately using these speeded behavioral responses