Improper adjustment of brightness and contrast on the video monitor is most likely to cause which of the following?

• A. The flicker rate of the video monitor will be increased
• B. The spatial resolution will be degraded
• C. Over gain or under gain the image
• D. The temporal resolution will be reduced

Answer: (C)

Brightness and contrast controls determine how the grayscale values are shown on the monitor. When these are not set properly, the image can become too bright or too dark, washing out details or hiding subtle shades. This effect is described as the image being over-gained or under-gained. The other factors listed—flicker rate, spatial resolution, and temporal resolution—aren’t directly changed by brightness or contrast: flicker rate depends on refresh timing, spatial resolution on pixel density and sharpness, and temporal resolution on frame rate. So improper brightness/contrast most directly leads to an image that is over-gained or under-gained.