Texture laciness: the texture equivalent of transparency?
Displays with overlapping squares of different textures were produced. In some texture combinations, the overlapping area appears to be a new texture. In other combinations, however, one texture is seen through the other as if it were inscribed on a transparent sheet and held in front of the other. This phenomenon can be called texture laciness. It is claimed that texture laciness is important because in the natural world we frequently encounter overlapping textures that we perceive as separate. In examining the conditions that lead to texture laciness, it was found that (1) laciness occurs more strongly with decreasing similarity between elements of two textures, (2) when the elements of the two textures are the same, the overlapped area tends to appear as a new texture, and (3) the physical overlapping of the individual elements of two textures hinders texture decomposition, irrespective of relative positioning. It is suggested that the textures inducing laciness may be processed as surfaces rather than just collections of identical elements. Texture laciness also reveals that even if 'antitextons'-the shapes of the spaces between texture elements, which have been regarded as important in texture discrimination-are destroyed by positioning another set of texture elements in the spaces, the textures can remain sufficiently identifiable to be perceived as separate.
Watanabe
T
T
Department of Psychology, Boston University, MA 02215, USA.
Cavanagh
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P
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity; D003867:Depth Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009903:Optical Illusions; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011601:Psychophysics