Texture segmentation along the horizontal meridian: nonmonotonic changes in performance with eccentricity.
In 3 experiments, subjects were required to detect the presence of a small region of disparate texture embedded in a larger background at a range of eccentricities. Detection performance always peaked several degrees from fixation. Experiment 1 showed that the location of the peak was not retinally specific; scaling the display changed the location of the performance peak. Experiment 2 showed that poor foveal performance could not be explained by cross-frequency interference; filtering out high spatial frequencies did not lead to improved foveal performance. Experiment 3 showed that the effect is not unique to textures comprising left and right oblique line segments. A parsimonious account of these data is that, at the fovea, there is a mismatch between the scale of the texture and the scale of the mechanisms responsible for encoding texture differences. This mismatch diminishes as the textures are moved further into the periphery.
Gurnsey
R
R
Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Pearson
P
P
Day
D
D
D001288:Attention; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012684:Sensory Thresholds; D014794:Visual Fields