title: Position-linked interference in forming simple visual groups.
abstract: Experiments with 2-element visual groups reveal a form of interference that has several interesting properties. Observers judged the orientation of an imaginary line formed by 2 pixels (the target) while attempting to ignore a third pixel (the noise). Noise interfered with performance, even when it was made distinct from the target in various ways. This interference was strongly position linked; a single equation described the interference pattern for many different target-noise configurations. Maximum interference was observed not when the noise was closest to the target but when it was at a distance of half the separation between target pixels. Some initial findings were consistent with the idea that visual grouping reflects the operation of visual channels with Gabor-like receptive-field profiles. But subsequent results implicated processes that automatically construct visual boundaries.
authors.affiliation: University of Dayton Research Institute, Higley, Arizona 85236-2020.
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Lyon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D004215:Distance Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time