Abstract
A striking finding reported by Beck, Sutter, and Ivry (1987) was that, in textures composed of regions differentiated by the arrangement (checks and stripes) of two texture elements (light and dark squares), a large lightness difference between the squares could fail to yield segregation between the regions, whereas a smaller lightness difference could sometimes yield strong segregation. In the experiments reported here, we compared the segregation of striped and checked arrangements of light and dark squares into regions with the segregation of two randomly interspersed populations of light and dark squares into subpopuiations. Perceived lightnesses are the same for a given set of squares, whether they are arranged in regions or in intermixed populations. Perceived population segregation is approximately a single-valued function of the lightness differences of the squares, but perceived region segregation is not. The reason for the difference between population segregation and region segregation may be that region segregation is mediated by detectors’ having large oriented receptive fields (large bar detectors) that are sensitive to the fundamental spatial frequency and orientation of the texture region as defined by the arrangement of the squares (Beck et al., 1987; Sutter, Beck, & Graham, 1989). These detectors cannot be responsible for population segregation, because the light and dark squares are distributed randomly throughout these patterns and therefore do not define a consistent arrangement of any particular spatial frequency or orientation. The light and dark squares in the population patterns fall equally on excitatory and inhibitory regions of large bar detectors. A plausible explanation for population segregation is to suppose that the segregation is the result of similarity grouping of the light and dark squares.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arend, L. E., &Goldstein, R. (1987). Simultaneous constancy, tightness, and brightness.Journal of the Optical Society of America A,4, 2281–2285.
Beck, J. (1982). Textural segmentation. In J. Beck (Ed.),Organization and representation in perception (pp. 285–317). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Beck, J., Prazdny, K., &Rosenfeld, A. (1983). A theory of textural segmentation. In J. Beck, B. Hope, & A. Rosenfeld (Eds.),Human and machine vision (pp. 1–38). New York: Academic Press.
Beck, J., Sutter, A., &Ivry, R. (1987). Spatial frequency channels and perceptual grouping in texture segregation.Computer Vision, Graphics, & Image Processing,37, 299–325.
Beck, J., Rosenfeld, A., &Ivry, R. (1989). Line segregation.Spatial Vision,4, 75–101.
Bergen, J. R. (in press). Theories of visual texture perception. In D. Regan (Ed.),Vision and visual disfunction: Vol. 10B. Spatial vision. New York: Macmillan.
Flock, H. R. (1970). Jameson and Hurvich’s theory of brightness contrast.Perception & Psychophysics,8, 118–124.
Flock, H. R. (1971). Toward a theory of brightness contrast. In M. H. Appley, (Ed.),Adaptation level (pp. 129–146). New York: Academic Press.
Flock, H. R., &Noguchi, K. R. (1970). An experimental test of Jameson and Hurvich’s theory of brightness contrast.Perception & Psychophysics,8, 129–136.
Gilchrist, A. L., &Jacobsen, A. (1989). Qualitative relationships are decisive.Perception & Psychophysics,45, 92–94.
Graham, N. (in press). Complex channels, early local nonlinearities, and normalization in texture segregation. In M. Landy & A. J. Movshon (Eds.),Computational models of visual processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Graham, N., Beck, J., &Sutter, A. (1989). Two nonlinearities in texture segregation.Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science,30(Suppl.), 361. (Abstract)
Graham, N., Beck, J., & Sutter, A. (1990).Effects of sign and amount of contrast on perceived segregation of element-arrangement textures: Evidence for two nonlinear processes. Manuscript in preparation.
Grossberg, S. (1987). Cortical dynamics of three-dimensional form, color, and brightness perception: I. Monocular theory.Perception & Psychophysics,41, 87–116.
Grossberg, S., &Todorovć T. (1988). Neural dynamics of 1-D and 2-D brightness perception: A unified model of classical and recent phenomena.Perception & Psychophysics,43, 241–277.
Heinemann, E. G. (1989). Brightness contrast, brightness constancy, and the ratio principle.Perception & Psychophysics,45, 89–91.
Helson, H. (1964).Adaptation level theory. New York: Harper and Row.
Hood, D. C., &Finkelstein, M. A. (1986). Sensitivity to light. In K. R. Boff, L. Kaufman, & J. P. Thomas (Eds.),Handbook of perception and human performance (Vol. 1, chap. 5). New York: Wiley.
Jacobsen, A., &Gilchrist, A. [L.] (1988). The ratio principle holds over a million-to-one range of illumination.Perception & Psychophysics,43, 1–6.
Judd, D. B., &Wyszecki, G. (1963).Color in business, science, and industry. New York: Wiley.
Land, E. H., &McCann, J. J. (1971). Lightness and retinex theory.Journal of the Optical Society of America,61, 1–11.
Press, W. H., Flannery, B. P., Teukolsky, S. A., &Vetterling, W. T. (1986).Numerical recipes. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shapley, R., &Enroth-Cugell, C. (1985). Visual adaptation and retinal gain controls. In N. N. Osborne & G. J. Chader (Eds.),Progress in retinal research (Vol. 3, pp. 263–346). New York: Pergamon.
Snedecor, G. W., &Cochran, W. G. (1980).Statistical methods. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.
Sutter, A., Beck, J., &Graham, N. (1989). Contrast and spatial variables in texture segregation: Testing a simple spatial-frequency channels model.Perception & Psychophysics,46, 312–332.
Wallach, H. (1948). Brightness constancy and the nature of achromatic colors.Journal of Experimental Psychology,27, 339–368.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported by AFOSR Grants AFOSR-85-0359 and AFOSR-88-0323.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Beck, J., Graham, N. & Sutter, A. Lightness differences and the perceived segregation of regions and populations. Perception & Psychophysics 49, 257–269 (1991). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214310
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214310