Visual discomfort for flickering sinusoids is not predicted by the spatio-temporal contrast sensitivity function

Hibbard, PB; Asher, JM; O'Hare, L; Evans, C; Dow, C

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Visual discomfort for flickering sinusoids is not predicted by the spatio-temporal contrast sensitivity function

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Hibbard, PB, Asher, JM, O'Hare, L ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0331-3646, Evans, C and Dow, C, 2026. Visual discomfort for flickering sinusoids is not predicted by the spatio-temporal contrast sensitivity function. Vision Research, 238: 108720. ISSN 0042-6989

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2025.108720

Abstract

Visual discomfort, the unpleasant, aversive experience associated with some visual stimuli, is most notable for flickering and spatially repetitive stimuli. It has been proposed that the degree of visual discomfort for such stimuli can be predicted by the contrast sensitivity function, being highest for midrange spatial and temporal frequencies. We evaluated the spatio-temporal tuning of visual discomfort for flickering, sinusoidal stimuli. Discomfort increased with spatial frequency for static and slowly flickering stimuli, but decreased with spatial frequency for stimuli flickering at 16 Hz. Discomfort increased with temporal frequency for spatially uniform stimuli, and for all spatial frequencies. Flickering stimuli were more uncomfortable than static stimuli of any spatial frequency. Spatially uniform stimuli flickering at 16 Hz, the highest frequency tested, were rated as the most uncomfortable of all. These results deviate from the contrast sensitivity function, indicating that threshold-level visual sensitivity is not a good predictor of visual discomfort for high contrast stimuli.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Vision Research
Creators:	Hibbard, P.B., Asher, J.M., O'Hare, L., Evans, C. and Dow, C.
Publisher:	Elsevier
Date:	January 2026
Volume:	238
ISSN:	0042-6989
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1016/j.visres.2025.108720 DOI 2528467 Other
Rights:	© 2025 the authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	18 Nov 2025 17:32
Last Modified:	10 Dec 2025 10:24
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54766