Mechanism independence for texture-modulation detection is consistent with a filter-rectify-filter mechanism

Abstract

The ability of the visual system to detect stimuli that vary along dimensions other than luminance or color— “second-order” stimuli—has been of considerable interest in recent years. An important unresolved issue is whether different types of second-order stimuli are detected by a single, all purpose, mechanism, or by mechanisms that are specific to stimulus type. Using a conventional psychophysical paradigm, we show that for a class of second-order stimuli—textures sinusoidally modulated in orientation (OM), spatial frequency (FM), and contrast (CM)—the human visual system employs mechanisms that are selective to stimulus type. Whereas the addition of a subthreshold mask to a test pattern of the same stimulus type was found to facilitate the detection of the test, no facilitation was observed when mask and test were of different types, suggesting mechanism independence for the different types of stimulus. This finding raises the important question of whether mechanism independence is compatible with the well-known filter-rectify-filter (FRF) model of second-order stimulus detection, since FRF mechanisms, in principle, do not discriminate between stimulus types. We show that for all mask/test combinations except those with CM masks, the FRF mechanism giving the largest response to the test modulation is largely unaffected by subthreshold levels of a different stimulus-type mask. For this reason, we cannot rule out the possibility that FRF mechanisms mediate the detection of our stimuli. For combinations involving CM masks, however, we propose that a process of contrast normalization renders the test stimulus insensitive to the mask stimulus.