Crowdsourcing visual perception experiments: a case of contrast threshold

PeerJ

article

Kyoshiro Sasaki¹  Yuki Yamada² 

[1] Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University;Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University;Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

关键词: Online experiment;    Perception;    Vision;    Contrast threshold;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.8339

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Crowdsourcing has commonly been used for psychological research but not for studies on sensory perception. A reason is that in online experiments, one cannot ensure that the rigorous settings required for the experimental environment are replicated. The present study examined the suitability of online experiments on basic visual perception, particularly the contrast threshold. We conducted similar visual experiments in the laboratory and online, employing three experimental conditions. The first was a laboratory experiment, where a small sample of participants (n = 24; laboratory condition) completed a task with 10 iterations. The other two conditions were online experiments: participants were either presented with a task without repetition of trials (n = 285; online non-repetition condition) or one with 10 iterations (n = 166; online repetition condition). The results showed significant equivalence in the contrast thresholds between the laboratory and online repetition conditions, although a substantial amount of data needed to be excluded from the analyses in the latter condition. The contrast threshold was significantly higher in the online non-repetition condition compared with the laboratory and online repetition conditions. To make crowdsourcing more suitable for investigating the contrast threshold, ways to reduce data wastage need to be formulated.

【 授权许可】

CC BY