"Cognitive Resources and Leadership Performance": A Rejoinder

I feel very honoured by the distinguished group of colleagues who consented to comment on my paper. All raised thought-provoking questions which merit a detailed reply. I only regret that the strict space limitation imposed by the editor restricts my response to points on which my paper was unclear, and to a few important substantive issues. It would have been very satisfying to explore the many constructive and highly intriguing insights contained in the commentators' contributions.     

Modelling visual detection: Luminance response non-linearity and internal noise

Two experiments that investigate the effect of various display factors on the detectability of a thin line signal in random visual noise are described. Three statistical decision models are described, together with their ability to account for the results. The first is an “ideal detector” model, the second an “energy integrator” model, and the third a model based upon the operation of retinal ganglion cells which incorporates a gain control mechanism. The ideal detector model fails to give a good account of human performance, whereas the other two models provide a good fit to the data. The digital Laplacian with gain control model has the slight advantage over the energy integrating model in being able to account for a small superiority in the detection of dark as opposed to bright signals. Finally, both models require the inclusion of an estimate of the internal noise of the human visual system to account for the pattern of performance observed under changing conditions of display contrast.