Examining Edge- and Region-Based Texture Analysis Mechanisms

S. Sabina Wolfson & Michael S. Landy (1998)

Vision Research, 38(3), 439-446

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Instantaneous texture discrimination was examined for different texture stimuli to uncover the use of edge-based and texture analysis mechanisms. Textures were composed of randomly placed, short, oriented line segments. Line segment orientation was chosen randomly using a Gaussian distribution (described by a mean and standard deviation). One such distribution determined the orientations on the left side of the image, and a second distribution was used for the right side. The two textures either abutted to form an edge or were separated by a blank region. A texture difference in mean orientation led to superior discrimination performance when the texture abutted. On the other hand, when the textures differed in the standard deviation of the orientation distribution, performance was similar in the two conditions. These results suggest that edge-based texture analysis mechanisms were used (i.e. were the most sensitive) in the abutting difference-in-mean case, but region-based texture analysis mechanisms were used in the other three cases.


Supported in part by NIH grant EY08266.