Hidden-face recognition: comparing foveal and extrafoveal performance.

Ambiguous stimulus material was computer-generated by superimposing image components of a target-face and either a random checkerboard texture or a masking face. The recognition of the target-face was studied both for foveal and extrafoveal vision. Compensation of the peripheral disadvantage in image discrimination by rescaling the stimulus size was possible only in the case of texture. Comparable results were obtained from combining band-pass image components of the portraits. Results suggest that it is the relative inability to recover a signal from spatially correlated noise that characterizes visual discrimination in the peripheral visual field.