Determination of contrast sensitivity for mammographic softcopy reading

Abstract

Research of visual perception of luminance differences is an important basis for understanding the perception of complex patterns. We introduce a new approach for determining the contrast sensitivity function (CSF) in front of the complex anatomical structures of mammograms. For this purpose a sinusoidal pattern and digits are used as target items. The approximation to contrast thresholds is done by a psychophysical staircase procedure and is performed for a selection of spatial frequencies.