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Assimilative serial dependence in perception occurs where responses about a stimulus (e.g., orientation) are biased towards previously seen perceptual information (e.g., the orientation of the stimulus shown on the previous trial). This bias may occur to perceptual information from the previous trial, or to the response or decision made on the previous trial. We asked whether providing response feedback could change the serial dependence effect on the following trial. Twenty-one participants completed a task in which they adjusted an on-screen pointer to reproduce the orientation of a briefly-presented Gabor stimulus. They received feedback about the accuracy of their response that either reflected their actual accuracy or was random. We found significant positive biases to the stimulus and response only when the participant had received positive ("correct!") feedback on that trial. When the inducer response had been incorrect, the effect was significant only to the response itself and not to the stimulus. Overall, we suggest that our participants demonstrated a bias towards the percept from the previous trial, which is better represented by the response than the stimulus for incorrect trials, and that this effect can be modulated post-perceptually by feedback., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Symmetry perception in dot patterns is tolerant to temporal delays of up to 60 ms within and between element pairs. However, it is not known how factors effecting symmetry discrimination in static patterns might affect temporal integration in dynamic patterns. One such feature is luminance polarity. Using dynamic stimuli with increasing temporal delay (SOA) between the onset of the first and second element in a symmetric pair, we investigated how four different luminance-polarity conditions affected the temporal integration of symmetric patterns. All four luminance polarity conditions showed similar upper temporal limits of approximately 60 ms. However psychophysical performance over all delay durations showed significantly higher symmetry thresholds for unmatched-polarity patterns at short delays, but also significantly less sensitivity to increasing temporal delay relative to matched-polarity patterns. These varying temporal windows are consistent with the involvement of a fast, sensitive first-order mechanism for matched-polarity patterns, and a slower, more robust second-order mechanism for unmatched-polarity patterns. Temporal integration windows for unmatched-polarity patterns were not consistent with performance expected from attentional mechanisms alone, and instead supports the involvement of second-order mechanisms that combines information from ON and OFF channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When stimulus inputs from different senses are integrated to form a coherent percept, inputs from a more precise sense are typically more dominant than those from a less precise sense. Furthermore, we hypothesized that some basic stimulus features, such as orientation, can be supramodal-represented at a conceptual level that is independent of the original modality precision. This hypothesis was tested with perceptual learning experiments. Specifically, participants practiced coarser tactile orientation discrimination, which initially had little impact on finer visual orientation discrimination (tactile vs. visual orientation thresholds = 3:1). However, if participants also practiced a functionally orthogonal visual contrast discrimination task in a double training design, their visual orientation performance was improved at both tactile-trained and untrained orientations, as much as through direct visual orientation training. The complete tactile-to-visual learning transfer is consistent with a conceptual supramodal representation of orientation unconstrained by original modality precision, likely through certain forms of input standardization. Moreover, this conceptual supramodal representation, when improved through perceptual learning in one sense, can in turn facilitate orientation discrimination in an untrained sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key visual neuronal property that is mirrored in human behaviour is centre-surround contrast suppression, which is orientation-dependent. When a target is embedded in a high-contrast surround, the centre appears reduced in contrast, the magnitude of which depends on the relative orientation between centre and surround. Previous reports demonstrate changes in perceptual surround suppression with ageing; however, whether the orientation-dependency of surround suppression is impacted by ageing has not been explored. Here, we tested 18 younger (aged 19-33) and 18 older (aged 60-77) adults. Perceptual surround suppression was stronger for parallel than orthogonal stimuli; however contrary to previous work, here we found no difference in perceptual suppression strength between age-groups. In the same participants, we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) and conducted multivariate pattern analysis to confirm that parallel and orthogonal centre-surround stimuli elicit distinguishable brain activity, predominantly over occipital areas. Despite a delay in the first prominent ERP component (P1) in response to each pattern, older adults showed similar decoding of orientation information (i.e. distinguish between parallel and orthogonal centre-surround stimuli from 70 ms post-stimulus onset) as younger adults. This suggests that sufficient information to distinguish orientation in centre-surround stimuli becomes available to the older human brain as early as in younger adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two case studies in the literature report on patients with infantile nystagmus (IN) who preferred to read text that is oriented vertically rather than horizontally. The current study systematically evaluated the effect of text orientation (-60 to +90 deg with respect to horizontal) on reading speed in nine individuals with IN associated with albinism at Hadassah Academic College (HAC), seven individuals with IN at the University of Houston (UH), and a total of 17 normal control observers. Observers at HAC read 40-character passages of Hebrew text from standardized 2nd grade level reading material and observers at UH read MNRead acuity chart sentences. Letter size was two to six lines larger than each observer's measured visual acuity. In both individuals with IN and normal observers reading speed was fastest for horizontally oriented text and decreased for other orientations. However, reading speed decreased significantly more for non-horizontally orientated text in the observers with IN, compared to controls. In general, it is recommended that to achieve best reading performance patients with IN read horizontally oriented text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many image-level factors affect reading speed and comprehension, including the in-plane orientation of text. As words' angular deviation from upright increases, so do response times. Here we investigated whether these orientation effects in reading are based purely on an egocentric (retinal) reference frame, or whether there is also a contribution of the environmental reference frame. Participants completed a lexical decision task with six-letter, two-syllable words and nonwords presented at a wide range of angles, in increments of 22.5°. A control group of participants (N = 66) completed the task while sitting upright, and an experimental group (N = 43) completed the task while lying sideways on their right side. The function relating the egocentric orientation of strings to response times was symmetric for upright observers, but skewed for observers who lay sideways, with an advantage for responding to environmentally upright text. Our results suggest that sideways readers may use an oblique reference frame (similar to the perceptual upright) for mentally rotating text. We discuss implications for designing optimal text orientations in head mounted displays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neurons in early visual cortex respond to both luminance- (1st order) and contrast-modulated (2nd order) local features in the visual field. In later extra-striate areas neurons with larger receptive fields integrate information across the visual field. For example, local luminance-defined features can be integrated into contours and shapes. Evidence for the global integration of features defined by contrast-modulation is less well established. While good performance in some shape tasks has been demonstrated with 2nd order stimuli, the integration of contours fails with 2nd order elements. Recently we developed a global orientation coherence task that is more basic than contour integration, bearing similarity to the well-established global motion coherence task. Similar to our previous 1st order result for this task, we find 2nd order coherence detection to be scale-invariant. There was a small but significant threshold elevation for 2nd order relative to 1st order. We used a noise masking approach to compare the efficiency of orientation integration for the 1st and 2nd order. We find a significant deficit for 2nd order detection at both the local and global level, however the small size of this effect stands in stark contrast against previous results from contour-integration experiments, which are almost impossible with 2nd order stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the visual field, progressive differences exist in neural processing as well as perceptual abilities. Expansion of stimulus scale across eccentricity compensates for some basic visual capacities, but not for high-order functions. It was hypothesized that as with many higher-order functions, perceptual grouping ability should decline across eccentricity. To test this prediction, psychophysical measurements of grouping were made across eccentricity. Participants indicated the dominant grouping of dot grids in which grouping was based upon luminance, motion, orientation, or proximity. Across trials, the organization of stimuli was systematically decreased until perceived grouping became ambiguous. For all stimulus features, grouping ability remained relatively stable until 40°, beyond which thresholds significantly elevated. The pattern of change across eccentricity varied across stimulus feature, in which stimulus scale, dot size, or stimulus size interacted with eccentricity effects. These results demonstrate that perceptual grouping of such stimuli is not reliant upon foveal viewing, and suggest that selection of dominant grouping patterns from ambiguous displays operates similarly across much of the visual field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceptual learning is a sustainable improvement in performance on a perceptual task following training. A hallmark of perceptual learning is task specificity - after participants have trained on and learned a particular task, learning rarely transfers to another task, even with identical stimuli. Accordingly, it is assumed that performing a task throughout training is a requirement for learning to occur on that specific task. Thus, interleaving training trials of a target task, with those of another task, should not improve performance on the target task. However, recent findings in audition show that interleaving two tasks during training can facilitate perceptual learning, even when the training on neither task yields learning on its own. Here we examined the role of cross-task training in the visual domain by training 4 groups of human observers for 3 consecutive days on an orientation comparison task (target task) and/or spatial-frequency comparison task (interleaving task). Interleaving small amounts of training on each task, which were ineffective alone, not only enabled learning on the target orientation task, as in audition, but also surpassed the learning attained by training on that task alone for the same total number of trials. This study illustrates that cross-task training in visual perceptual learning can be more effective than single-task training. The results reveal a comparable learning principle across modalities and demonstrate how to optimize training regimens to maximize perceptual learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Individual differences in numerosity acuity predict mathematical ability. [•] We tested 300+ participants to see if this relationship is unique to numerosity. [•] Visual numerosity and orientation task performance predicted mathematics scores. [•] Performance improved with age, and males significantly outperformed females. [•] This highlights links between mathematics and multiple visuospatial abilities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The efficient coding hypothesis posits that sensory systems are adapted to the regularities of their signal input so as to reduce redundancy in the resulting representations. It is therefore important to characterize the regularities of natural signals to gain insight into the processing of natural stimuli. While measurements of statistical regularity in vision have focused on photographic images of natural environments it has been much less investigated, how the specific imaging process embodied by the organism’s eye induces statistical dependencies on the natural input to the visual system. This has allowed using the convenient assumption that natural image data are homogeneous across the visual field. Here we give up on this assumption and show how the imaging process in a human model eye influences the local statistics of the natural input to the visual system across the entire visual field. Artificial scenes with three-dimensional edge elements were generated and the influence of the imaging projection onto the back of a spherical model eye were quantified. These distributions show a strong radial influence of the imaging process on the resulting edge statistics with increasing eccentricity from the model fovea. This influence is further quantified through computation of the second order intensity statistics as a function of eccentricity from the center of projection using samples from the dead leaves image model. Using data from a naturalistic virtual environment, which allows generation of correctly projected images onto the model eye across the entire field of view, we quantified the second order dependencies as function of the position in the visual field using a new generalized parameterization of the power spectra. Finally, we compared this analysis with a commonly used natural image database, the van Hateren database, and show good agreement within the small field of view available in these photographic images. We conclude by providing a detailed quantitative analysis of the second order statistical dependencies of the natural input to the visual system across the visual field and demonstrating the importance of considering the influence of the sensory system on the statistical regularities of the input to the visual system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We set out to determine whether extra-striate ventral stream function was compromised in amblyopia and to compare any observed deficit with previous data on comparable dorsal stream function. We devised a multi-element orientation task where orientation coherence sensitivity could be measured in a comparable way to motion coherence. The use of spatial frequency narrowband elements allowed for accurate correction of any upstream contrast sensitivity influence and ensured that the orientation bandwidth of our elements did not covary with the measured coherence. Using a standard equivalent noise analysis, we varied both the local orientation bandwidth of individual elements as well as the global orientation bandwidth of the element array to obtain estimates of both local and global internal noise and efficiency. The results show that for this ventral stream task there is only a subtle amblyopic deficit in processing global orientation relative to control observers. This deficit is present for both amblyopic and fixing eyes, and appears to reflect poorer efficiency in processing local orientation, suggesting a subtle deficit at the input stage to extra-striate cortex where orientation coherence is processed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We provide novel evidence for a two-stage model of visual search applied to the selection based on top-down cues to stimulus colour and orientation. The model supposes that visual displays are first parsed into colour based groups, a process that is modulated by the presence of an initial cue to the target’s colour. Subsequently search is directed to other featural properties represented within the colour-based groups. Cues to the orientation of the target are only effective at this second stage. The results provide strong evidence that colour and orientation cues operate in different ways to guide search. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A vertical target is perceived as tilted against a slightly tilted inducer surrounding it. To identify the temporal resolution and temporal extent of this phenomenon of orientation repulsion in the same paradigm, we used an alternating pair of inducer stimuli having complementary orientation distributions and quantified repulsion at various alternation frequencies. The duration of each inducer stimulus was inversely proportional to the frequency. When an orthogonal pair of D2 patterns, a type of grating whose luminance modulation in a particular orientation was the second-order partial derivative of an isotropic 2D-Gaussian, was used as the inducer, repulsion occurred when the duration exceeded 20 ms and leveled off at 30 ms and beyond. When a custom-made texture with a narrowband orientation distribution and another texture with a complementary orientation distribution were alternated as the inducer, repulsion gradually increased until the inducer duration reached 200 ms. The gradual increase in repulsion was observed regardless of whether the orientation of the inducer that appeared simultaneously with the target was discernible. These findings reveal that contextual modulation in orientation occurs at a high temporal resolution and continues to a long temporal extent under optimal conditions., (Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Abstract: We investigated the precision of orientation representations with two tasks, change detection and recall. Previously change detection has been measured only with relatively large orientation changes compared to psychophysical thresholds. In the first experiment, we measured the observers’ ability (d′) to detect small changes in orientation (5–30°) with 1–4 Gabor items. With one item even a 10° change was well detected (average d′=2.5). As the amount of change increased to 30°, the d′ increased to 5.2. When the number of items was increased, the d′s gradually decreased. In the second experiment, we used a recall task and the observers adjusted the orientation of a probe Gabor to match the orientation of a Gabor held in the memory. The standard deviation (s.d.) of errors was calculated from the Gaussian distribution fitted to the data. As the number of items increased from 1 to 6, the s.d. increased from 8.6° to 19.6°. Even with six items, the observers did not make any random adjustments. The results show a square root relation between the d′/s.d. and the number of items. The d′ in change detection is directly proportional to the square root of (1/n) and the orientation change. The increase of the s.d. in recall task is inversely proportional to square root of (1/n). The results suggest that limited resources and precision of representations, without additional assumptions, determine the memory performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Recognition of objects improves after training. The exact characteristics of this visual learning process remain unclear. We examined to which extent object learning depends on the exact exemplar and orientation used during training. Participants were trained to name object pictures at as short a picture presentation time as possible. The required presentation time diminished over training. After training participants were tested with a completely new set of objects as well as with two variants of the trained object set, namely an orientation change and a change of the exact exemplar shown. Both manipulations led to a decrease in performance compared to the original picture set. Nevertheless, performance with the manipulated versions of the trained stimuli was better than performance with the completely new set, at least when only one manipulation was performed. Amount of transfer to new images of an object was related to perceptual similarity, but not to pixel overlap or to measurements of similarity in the different layers of a popular hierarchical object recognition model (HMAX). Thus, object learning generalizes only partially over changes in exemplars and orientation, which is consistent with the tuning properties of neurons in object-selective cortical regions and the role of perceptual similarity in these representations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We redirect our eye approximately three times per second to bring a new part of our environment on to our fovea (). How a scanning path is planned is still an unsolved matter. Most research to date has focused on the question of target selection: how is the next fixation location, or saccade target, selected. Here we investigated the direction of spontaneous saccades, rather than fixation locations per se. We measured eye movements, while observers were freely viewing noisy textures: oriented gabors embedded in either pink (1/f) noise or pixel noise, of which they later had to report their orientation. Our results show that a significant percentage of the spontaneous saccades were directed along the orientation of the stimulus. These results suggest that observers may have used an underlying eye movement strategy involving the search for contour endings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Previous studies have demonstrated that observers can search through a subset of items carrying a minority feature to find a conjunction target (). We examined whether subset search takes place when participants have less specific foreknowledge of the target (when the target is one of two possible items), measuring eye movements as well as reaction times. When there were unequal ratios of distractors, fixations were initially directed to the small subset. These initial eye movements were often directed between items with the same feature, suggesting guidance from pooled feature values. There was stronger guidance within color- than orientation-defined groups, although the features were balanced for salience. The results suggest that grouping of items by color operates more globally than grouping in orientation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In order to investigate differences in the effects of spatial attention between the left visual field (LVF) and the right visual field (RVF), we employed a full/poor attention paradigm using stimuli presented in the LVF vs. RVF. In addition, to investigate differences in the effects of spatial attention between the dorsal and ventral processing streams, we obtained motion thresholds (motion coherence thresholds and fine direction discrimination thresholds) and orientation thresholds, respectively. The results of this study showed negligible effects of attention on the orientation task, in either the LVF or RVF. In contrast, for both motion tasks, there was a significant effect of attention in the LVF, but not in the RVF. These data provide psychophysical evidence for greater effects of spatial attention in the LVF/right hemisphere, specifically, for motion processing in the dorsal stream. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Shape processing involves a progression from local to global analysis. A key aspect of this is the binding of distributed local features into an overall form followed by the extraction of the shape independently of its local contrast and spatial scales, so enabling the shape to be encoded based on its proportions without reference to its exact size or retinal location. Here we use contour- and surface-defined radial frequency (RF) patterns in a shape discrimination task, previously thought to reflect a global processing stage that has reached contrast and scale invariance. We compare performance across different spatial scales for a wide range of RF patterns (contour spatial frequencies of 0.7–10.0cpd, pattern radii of 0.5–10.5°), and sharp- and smooth-edged surface-RF patterns, all at low contrast (5× detection threshold). We show that shape discrimination thresholds for RF patterns have a complex series of dependencies on stimulus size (radius), contour spatial frequency (thickness) and contrast, with no scale invariance. Our results are at odds with earlier work showing no effect of radius and spatial frequency on discrimination thresholds. We show that this discrepancy can be accounted for by a differential effect of contrast on shape discrimination, with shape invariance only stabilizing at higher contrasts (10–20× threshold). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A series of experiments investigated the extent to which the spatial orientation of a signal line affects discrimination of its trajectory from the random trajectories of background noise lines. The orientation of the signal line was either parallel (iso-) or orthogonal (ortho-) to its motion direction and it was identical in all respects to the noise (orientation, length and speed) except for its motion direction, rendering the signal line indistinguishable from the noise on a frame-to-frame basis. We found that discrimination of ortho-trajectories was generally better than iso-trajectories. Discrimination of ortho-trajectories was largely immune to the effects of spatial jitter in the trajectory, and to variations in step size and line-length. Discrimination of iso-trajectories was reliable provided that step-size was not too short and did not exceed line length, and that the trajectory was straight. The new result that trajectory discrimination in moving line elements is modulated by line orientation suggests that ortho- and iso-trajectory discrimination rely upon two distinct mechanisms: iso-motion discrimination involves a ‘motion-streak’ process that combines motion information with information about orientation parallel to the motion trajectory, while ortho-motion discrimination involves extended trajectory facilitation in a network of receptive fields with orthogonal orientation tuning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Radial Frequency (RF) patterns can be used to study the processing of familiar shapes, e.g. triangles and squares. Opinion is divided over whether the mechanisms that detect these shapes integrate local orientation and position information directly, or whether local orientations and positions are first combined to represent extended features, such as curves, and that it is local curvatures that the shape mechanism integrates. The latter view incorporates an intermediate processing stage, the former does not. To differentiate between these hypotheses we studied the processing of micro-patch sampled RF patterns as a function of the luminance polarity of successive elements on the contour path. Our first study measures shape after effects involving suprathreshold amplitude RF shapes and shows that alternating the luminance polarity of successive micro-patch elements disrupts adaptation of the global shape. Our second study shows that polarity alternations also disrupt sensitivity to threshold-amplitude RF patterns. These results suggest that neighbouring points of the contour shape are integrated into extended features by a polarity selective mechanism, prior to global shape processing, consistent with the view that for both threshold amplitude and suprathreshold amplitude patterns, global processing of RF shapes involves an intermediate stage of processing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We conducted suprathreshold discrimination experiments to compare how natural-scene information is processed in central and peripheral vision (16° eccentricity). Observers’ ratings of the perceived magnitude of changes in naturalistic scenes were lower for peripheral than for foveal viewing, and peripheral orientation changes were rated less than peripheral colour changes. A V1-based Visual Difference Predictor model of the magnitudes of perceived foveal change was adapted to match the sinusoidal grating sensitivities of peripheral vision, but it could not explain why the ratings for changes in peripheral stimuli were so reduced. Perceived magnitude ratings for peripheral stimuli were further reduced by simultaneous presentation of flanking patches of naturalistic images, a phenomenon that could not be replicated foveally, even after M-scaling the foveal stimuli to reduce their size and the distances from the flankers. The effects of the peripheral flankers are very reminiscent of crowding phenomena demonstrated with letters or Gabor patches. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We extended a previous study (Hess et al. (1999). A deficit in strabismic amblyopia for global shape detection. Vision Research, 39, 901–914) where it was claimed that strabismic amblyopes exhibit a deficit for the detection of continuous radial frequency patterns, a task that is thought to involve global processing and in particular, a contribution of extra-striate area V4. We confirm this previous report using a novel Gabor-sampled stimulus and show that the deficit for the amblyopic eye occurs across a range of circular contour frequencies, that is the number of radial cycles per circular contour length in degrees. By arranging the Gabor-samples to coincide with either the peaks/troughs or zero-crossings of the radial modulation, we were able to tease apart the relative contributions of local position and local orientation respectively to the shape processing deficit. The deficit for the amblyopic eye involves both anomalous position and orientation coding with the latter being more affected than the former. While this suggests that ventral extra-striate processing is anomalous, it leaves open the possibility that the striate input may be responsible. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Orientation discrimination of a texture line having orientation different from that of static background lines is facilitated when the lines are aligned along their orientation axis and when their separation is small (Experiment 1a). The facilitation by alignment remains when motion is added to the target (Experiment 1b). However, when the motion rather than the orientation has to be judged, alignment reduces sensitivity (d′) regardless of whether the target has orientation the same as (iso-oriented) or different from background elements (Experiment 2). The inhibitory effect of alignment is confirmed when subjects have to discriminate the motion direction of an iso-oriented target (Experiment 3). Such inhibition by alignment is stronger when elements are close and may reflect a property of lateral interactions of motion detectors, since it is only present when observers have to judge the target motion direction. Overall, our results indicate an opposite role of the lateral interactions that facilitate grouping of iso-oriented and collinear elements, in segmentation by orientation contrast and motion contrast. In other words, global grouping (i) facilitates discrimination of orientation contrast, indicating a global process, and (ii) inhibits both detection and discrimination of motion contrast, suggesting the presence of a local process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Outside the fovea, the visual system pools features of adjacent stimuli. Left or right of fixation the tilt of an almost horizontal Gabor pattern becomes difficult to classify when horizontal Gabors appear above and below it. Classification is even harder when flankers are to the left and right of the target. With all four flankers present, observers were required both to classify the target’s tilt and perform a spatial frequency task on two of the four flankers. This dual task proved significantly more difficult when attention was directed to the horizontally aligned flankers. We suggest that covert attention to stimuli can increase the weights of their pooled features. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We have employed the shape frequency and shape-amplitude after-effects (SFAE and SAAE) to investigate: (i) whether the shapes of illusory and real curves are processed by the same or different mechanisms, and (ii) the carrier-tuning properties of illusory curvature mechanisms. The SFAE and SAAE are the phenomena in which adaptation to a sinusoidal-shaped contour results in a shift in, respectively, the perceived shape-frequency and perceived shape-amplitude of a test contour in a direction away from that of the adapting stimulus. Both after-effects are believed to be mediated by mechanisms sensitive to curvature (; see also ). We observed both shape after-effects in sinusoidally-shaped illusory contours defined by phase-shifted line-grating carriers. We tested whether illusory and real contours were mediated by the same or different mechanisms by comparing same adaptor-and-test with different adaptor-and-test combinations of real and illusory contours. Real contour adaptors produced after-effects in illusory contour tests that were as great as, or even greater than those produced by illusory contour adaptors. However, illusory contour adaptors produced much weaker after-effects in real contour tests than did real contour adaptors. This asymmetry suggests that illusory contour curves are encoded by a sub-set of mechanisms sensitive to real contour curves. We also examined the carrier-tuning properties of illusory-contour curvature processing using adaptor and test illusory contours that differed in the luminance contrast-polarity, luminance scale and orientation of the carriers. We found no selectivity to any of these dimensions for either even-symmetric or odd-symmetric line-gratings carriers, even though selectivity to these dimensions was found for real contours. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Following adaptation to an oriented (1-d) signal in central vision, the orientation of subsequently viewed test signals may appear repelled away from or attracted towards the adapting orientation. Small angular differences between the adaptor and test yield ‘repulsive’ shifts, while large angular differences yield ‘attractive’ shifts. In peripheral vision, however, both small and large angular differences yield repulsive shifts. To account for these tilt after-effects (TAEs), a cascaded model of orientation estimation that is optimized using hierarchical Bayesian methods is proposed. The model accounts for orientation bias through adaptation-induced losses in information that arise because of signal uncertainties and neural constraints placed upon the propagation of visual information. Repulsive (direct) TAEs arise at early stages of visual processing from adaptation of orientation-selective units with peak sensitivity at the orientation of the adaptor . Attractive (indirect) TAEs result from adaptation of second-stage units with peak sensitivity at and , which arise from an efficient stage of linear compression that pools across the responses of the first-stage orientation-selective units. A spatial orientation vector is estimated from the transformed oriented unit responses. The change from attractive to repulsive TAEs in peripheral vision can be explained by the differing harmonic biases resulting from constraints on signal power (in central vision) versus signal uncertainties in orientation (in peripheral vision). The proposed model is consistent with recent work by computational neuroscientists in supposing that visual bias reflects the adjustment of a rational system in the light of uncertain signals and system constraints. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We trained subjects to identify either upright or inverted faces in a 10AFC task and measured performance subsequently in four conditions: same- and different-upright faces, and same- and different-inverted faces. Performance improved for both the upright-trained and the inverted-trained groups. The improvements were highly specific to the trained face exemplars, and largely specific to the trained face orientations. This pattern of results yielded an increase in the face-inversion effect after upright-training, and a decrease in the inversion effect after inverted-training, but only for the trained set of faces in both groups. A similar pattern of results was found for phase-scrambled faces in which the configural structure of faces had been removed: although there was no baseline inversion effect for the scrambled stimuli, inversion effects emerged after training. We consider the implications of this pattern of learning for current views on the face-inversion effect, and face-encoding more generally. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: When a colour/orientation conjunction search display is immediately preceded by a display that shows either the colour or the orientation of each upcoming search item, search is faster after colour-preview than after orientation-preview. One explanation for this feature asymmetry is that colour has priority access to attentional selection relative to features such as orientation and size. In support of this hypothesis, we show that this asymmetry persists even after colour and orientation feature search performance is equated. However, this notion was ruled out by our subsequent experiments in which the target was defined by conjunction of colour and size; colour-preview was less helpful than size-preview (even though colour-feature search was faster than size-feature search, for these feature values). A final set of experiments tested size-preview vs. orientation-preview for size/orientation conjunction search, using stimuli for which orientation-feature search was easier than size-feature search. Size-preview produced much faster search than orientation-preview, demonstrating again that ease of feature search does not predict effects of a feature-preview. Overall, size produced the most facilitation when presented as a feature-preview (for both colour/size and size/orientation conjunctions), followed by colour (for colour/orientation conjunction but not for colour/size conjunction) and then orientation (which never facilitated search). Whilst each feature-preview may potentially facilitate search, the transition from feature-preview display to search display could disrupt search processes, because of luminance and/or colour changes. We see evidence for some sort of disruption when the feature-preview slows search. An explanation of this set of results must focus on both facilitation and disruption: these effects are not mutually exclusive, and neither suffices alone, since performance after feature-preview can be significantly better or significantly worse than conjunction baseline. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We masked White’s and Benary’s brightness illusions and simultaneous contrast with narrowband visual noise and measured detection thresholds and brightness. The noise was either isotropic or orientation filtered. A narrow spatial frequency tuning was found for detection and brightness for every stimulus. A narrow orientation tuning was also found: the strength of the illusions decreased (White and Benary) or increased (White) depending on the orientation of the mask. The critical borders were always of the same contrast polarity. The results suggest that the brightness in figure–ground scenes is determined by mechanisms integrating incremental and decremental borders in early visual cortices. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: When our two eyes view incompatible images, the brain invokes suppressive processes to inhibit one image, and favor the other. Two phenomena are typically observed: dichoptic masking (reduced sensitivity to one image) for brief presentations, and binocular rivalry (alternation between the two images), over longer exposures. However, it is not clear if these two phenomena arise from a common suppressive process. We investigated this by measuring both threshold elevation in simultaneous dichoptic masking and mean percept durations in rivalry, whilst varying relative stimulus orientation. Masking and rivalry showed significant correlations, such that strong masking was associated with long dominance durations. A second experiment suggested that individual differences across both measures are also correlated. These findings are consistent with varying the magnitude of interocular suppression in computational models of both rivalry and masking, and imply the existence of a common suppressive process. Since dichoptic masking has been localised to the monocular neurons of V1, this is a plausible first stage of binocular rivalry. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Geisler’s [Geisler, W. S. (1999). Motion streaks provide a spatial code for motion direction. Nature, 400, 65–69] model of motion processing proposes that image smear arising from extended integration periods in Simple cells creates motion streaks which indicate the axis of motion. Orientation cues were provided using textured dot-pairs composed of randomly-placed luminance increments and decrements giving contours with the same average luminance as the background and incompatible with smear. These contours were equally effective in signalling both motion axis and coherence. The results support the assertion that extended contours can determine the perceived axis of motion and that the motion system can use second-order texture cues for this purpose. Inputs of this type are therefore required for both Geisler’s (1999) and Barlow and Olshausen’s [Barlow, H. B., & Olshausen, B. A. (2004). Convergent evidence for the visual analysis of optic flow through anisotropic attenuation of high spatial frequencies. Journal of Vision, 4, 415–426] models of this ability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Leventhal et al. (Science, 2003, 300(5620), 812–815) reported that orientation selectivity of V1 neurons was significantly reduced in older macaque monkeys, which suggests that mechanisms that encode orientation in humans may become more broadly tuned in old age. We examined this hypothesis in two experiments that used sine-wave masking and notched-noise masking to estimate the bandwidth of orientation-selective mechanisms in younger (age ≈ 23 years) and older (age ≈ 68 years) human adults. In both experiments, the orientation selectivity of masking was essentially identical in younger and older subjects. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Perception of global patterns requires the integration of local orientation information across space. The present study examined whether this integration ability declines in older age. We measured contrast thresholds for discriminating the global orientation of a “C” shaped contour against a blank background in younger and older subjects. Performance of younger subjects improved when the elements composing the “C” were aligned along the contour path, as opposed to being orthogonal to it or of mixed orientations. However, older subjects’ performance was not affected by the orientation of the local elements. This indicates an age-related decline in contour integration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Crowding of oriented signals has been explained as linear, compulsory averaging of the signals from target and flankers [Parkes, L., Lund, J., Angelucci, A., Solomon, J. A., & Morgan, M. (2001). Compulsory averaging of crowded orientation signals in human vision. Nature Neuroscience, 4(7), 739–744]. On the other hand, a comparable search task with sparse stimuli is well modeled by a ‘Signed–Max’ rule that integrates non-linearly local tilt estimates [Baldassi, S., & Verghese, P. (2002). Comparing integration rules in visual search. Journal of Vision, 2(8), 559–570], as reflected by the bimodality of the distributions of reported tilts in a magnitude matching task [Baldassi, S., Megna, N., & Burr, D. C. (2006). Visual clutter causes high-magnitude errors. PLoS Biology, 4(3), e56]. This study compares the two models in the context of crowding by using a magnitude matching task, to measure distributions of perceived target angles and a localization task, to probe the degree of access to local information. Response distributions were bimodal, implying uncertainty, only in the presence of abutting flankers. Localization of the target is relatively preserved but it quantitatively falls in between the predictions of the two models, possibly suggesting local averaging followed by a max operation. This challenges the notion of global averaging and suggests some conscious access to local orientation estimates. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A recent study by Poljac et al. [Poljac, E., Lankheet, M. J. M., & van den Berg, A. (2005). Perceptual compensation for eye torsion. Vision Research, 45(4), 485–496] concluded that there was complete perceptual compensation for ocular torsion, although they did not directly measure ocular torsion. Using a similar eccentric-gaze paradigm to induce changes in torsion, which were directly measured, we found inconsistent torsional eye movements at eccentric fixation, and also failed to detect a significant relationship between ocular torsion and the perception of line orientation. We then used a stimulus known to induce large changes in ocular torsion: on-centre yaw rotation. This stimulus induced a consistent change in the torsional position of the eye which positively correlated to subjects’ visual perception of horizontal. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]