Essock Edward A, Hansen Bruce C, Haun Andrew M
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA.
Perception. 2007;36(5):639-49. doi: 10.1068/p5695.
Illusory bands at a luminance transition in space (ie an edge) are well known. Here we demonstrate illusory bands of enhanced orientations or spatial frequencies at transitions between higher-contrast and lower-contrast image content along the orientation and spatial-frequency dimensions--the dimensions of cortical spatial coding. We conclude that this illusion is a consequence of cortical-level suppression of units of similar orientations and spatial frequencies and serves to aid texture segmentation while providing efficient neural coding.
