Method of quadratic approximation: A new approach to identification of analysers and channels in human vision. (Q1427260)

The considered observer is defined by a detection/discrimination model which involves a linear filter in a cascaded combination with a nonlinear transducer followed by a decision functional. The purpose is to identify the characteristics of the filter without knowing the exact form of both the transducer function and the decision functional which are only assumed to satisfy some a priori constraints, general enough to cover a large class of models. It is shown that a quadratic approximation of the threshold surface works very well. The calculus is based on the properties of the Minkowski norm.