Long range interactions between oriented texture elements

• Published in: Vision research (Oxford) Vol. 39; no. 5; pp. 933 - 945
• Main Authors: Wolfson, S.Sabina, Landy, Michael S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.03.1999; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Choice Behavior; Discrimination, Psychological - physiology; Distance Perception - physiology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Long range interactions; Orientation - physiology; Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology; Perception; Perceptual Masking - physiology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Texture; Vision; Long range interactions; Texture; Human; Figure ground perception; Visual stimulus; Long range interaction; Stimulus texture; Perception threshold; Vision; Detection threshold; Spatial orientation; Perception; Psychophysics; Experimental study
• DOI: 10.1016/S0042-6989(98)00144-8
• ISSN: 0042-6989

Long range interactions between texture elements (short, oriented line segments) were examined. Specifically, we studied the influence of a background array of texture elements on the detectability of a target element (separated from the background by an intermediate textured region) using textures like those of Caputo (Vis. Res. 1996, 36, 2815–2826). We found that, in general, when the background elements were oriented orthogonally to the target element, detection of the target element was better than when the background elements had the same orientation as the target element. We discuss these interactions in terms of inhibitory and excitatory connections between orientation and spatial frequency selective linear filters (e.g. filters which mimic V1 simple cells) which would respond to the individual texture elements.