# A visual search asymmetry for plaids

## TL;DR

The study shows that plaids, made from overlapping patterns, are perceived as basic visual features, unlike their individual components.

## Contribution

The research identifies a new basic visual feature in plaids based on their two-dimensionality.

## Key findings

- Finding a Gabor among plaids is harder than finding a plaid among Gabors.
- Plaids with the same frequency do not pop out from their component Gabors.
- The visual system distinguishes two-dimensional and one-dimensional image regions.

## Abstract

Search asymmetry has been called a “litmus test” for basic visual features. The letter Q is thought to contain a basic feature because (i) it can be found quickly, no matter how many O's it is hiding amongst and (ii) it is much harder to find an O amongst Q's. We tested the possibility that a basic visual feature is created when two perpendicular Gabor patterns are superimposed to form a “plaid.” We found relatively large effects of set size on reaction time whenever participants tried to find a Gabor hiding among plaids. Set-size effects were smaller when participants tried to find a 2- or 4-cycle-per-degree plaid that was hiding among its component Gabors. The implication is that these plaids contain a basic visual feature, which is not present in its component Gabors. This feature may be an intrinsic two-dimensionality that is extracted from the visual intensity map. Mixed-frequency plaids did not pop out from their component Gabors. This last result suggests that the visual system separates intrinsically two-dimensional image regions (e.g., corners and junctions) from intrinsically one-dimensional image regions (e.g., straight edges) after the scene is segregated into parallel spatial frequency channels.