Bloch's law predictions from diffusion process models of detection

Abstract

This paper describes a new model for Bloch's law based on the multichannel leaky stochastic integrators of P.L. Smith (1995). These models combine a linear filter model of stimulus encoding with a dynamic stochastic, information-accrual model of the decision stage. Accrued information is described by a time-inhomogeneous Ornstein-Uhlenbeck diffusion process, with the probability of a detection given by the first-passage time distribution of the process through an absorbing barrier. When combined with monophasic and biphasic temporal impulse response functions, the model correctly predicts Bloch's law and the differential breakdown of Bloch's law for large and small disk stimuli and grating stimuli of high and low spatial frequencies.