Similarities between texture grouping and motion perception: The role of color, luminance, and orientation

We present a series of experiments whose results show strong similarities between textural grouping and motion experiments. A family of stimuli consisting of elements of different colors, luminancepolarity, and orientation are used in experiments in both eliciting textural grouping and detection of apparent motion. Among the similarities are that the orientation attribute is a weaker attribute than either color or luminance polarity in eliciting both textural grouping and in detection of apparent motion. However, if the orientation elements are collinear they become salient and contribute toward grouping and apparent motion. The results also indicate that chromatic mechanisms play a significant role in both texture and motion perception. The similarity suggests that perceptual rules governing spatial grouping are analogous to those governing spatiotemporal grouping. The results of these experiments could be used in the areas of image segmentation, pattern recognition, and scientific visualization.