A Possible Model of Noise Enhanced Visual Perception in Human Vision

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates via simulation that a simple receptive field model can exhibit stochastic resonance, potentially explaining the contrast sensitivity enhancement observed in human vision through noise.

Contribution

It introduces a model showing how stochastic resonance in a basic receptive field can account for human contrast sensitivity improvements.

Findings

Receptive field model exhibits stochastic resonance.

Model explains psychophysical contrast sensitivity enhancement.

Simulation supports noise's beneficial role in visual perception.

Abstract

We demonstrate, through simulation, that a simple centre surround receptive field of vision is capable of exhibiting stochastic resonance. We also show that this could be used to model the nature of contrast sensitivity enhancement of human vision, through stochastic resonance, observed in psychophysical experiments.