Temporal resolution of orientation-based texture segregation

We analysed the temporal-frequency characteristics of two functional processes involved in orientation-based texture segregation: local orientation coding and subsequent orientation-contrast coding. Two texture images, in which each micropattern was rotated by 90 degrees, were alternated at various temporal frequencies. A micropattern was a second-derivative (D2) of a Gaussian that loses orientation information when temporally fused with the orthogonal D2 pattern. We measured the upper temporal-frequency limits for localising the target region whose mean orientation differed from the background by 90 degrees or by 45 degrees. If the temporal limit of the texture perception is determined by the most sluggish processing stage, the temporal limit for the 90 degrees texture should be determined by local orientation coding or by orientation-contrast coding, depending on which stage has the lower temporal precision. On the other hand, the 45 degrees texture should always be segregated below the temporal limit of local orientation coding regardless of the temporal limit of orientation-contrast coding. We found that the temporal limit for the 90 degrees texture was slightly higher than that for the 45 degrees texture under spatial conditions appropriate for texture segregation. Moreover, an orientation-noise analysis of segregation performance for a wide range of temporal frequencies revealed that the temporal-frequency sensitivities for the two textures were nearly identical. These results imply that the temporal limit for orientation-based texture segregation depends only on that of local orientation coding. This conclusion further suggests that the potential temporal resolution of orientation-contrast coding is not lower than that of local orientation coding, which would imply that the orientation-contrast coding is unlikely to be mediated by sluggish neural processes. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.