How do observers become proficient at finding camouflaged targets? Does gaining proficiency in locating a target in one camouflage search situation improve performance in novel camouflage situations? We examined these questions by having participants first perform a difficult camouflage search task for three sessions and, in the last session, search for novel camouflaged targets. Near-perfect t...

Cuttlefish are cephalopods capable of rapid camouflage responses to visual stimuli. However, it is not always clear to what these animals are responding. Previous studies have found cuttlefish to be more responsive to lateral stimuli rather than substrate. However, in previous works, the cuttlefish were allowed to settle next to the lateral stimuli. In this study, we examine whether juvenile cu...

Number of Papers published in peer-reviewed journals: Final Report: Neural Mechanisms of Recognizing Camouflaged Objects: A Human fMRI Study Report Title The project had the following three overall goals, all of which have now been accomplished: (1) To characterize the brain mechanisms of camouflage-breaking. (2) To characterize the brain mechanisms of learning to break camouflage, or camouflag...

spatial frequencies (as projected onto the retina) and these will dominate perceptual grouping mechanisms. With increasing distance, the highest frequencies are lost, and the components of the visual scene to which the viewer is most sensitive change systematically [10]. The multi-scale processing of images has been exploited to create hybrid pictures that vary with distance in, for example, pe...

BACKGROUND Recent studies highlighting the psychological benefits of medical treatment for dermatological skin conditions have demonstrated a clear role for medical therapy in psychological health. Skin conditions, particularly those that are overtly visible, such as those located on the face, neck, and hands, often have a profound effect on the daily functioning of those affected. The literatu...

Countershading is a pattern of coloration thought to have evolved in order to implement camouflage. By adopting a pattern of coloration that makes the surface facing towards the sun darker and the surface facing away from the sun lighter, the overall amount of light reflected off an animal can be made more uniformly bright. Countershading could hence contribute to visual camouflage by increasin...

Camouflage is a widespread phenomenon throughout nature and an important antipredator tactic in natural selection. Many visual predators have keen color perception, and thus camouflage patterns should provide some degree of color matching in addition to other visual factors such as pattern, contrast, and texture. Quantifying camouflage effectiveness in the eyes of the predator is a challenge fr...

Camouflage is perhaps the most widespread defence against predators in nature and an active area of interdisciplinary research. Recent work has aimed to understand what camouflage types exist (e.g. background matching, disruptive, and distractive patterns) and their effectiveness. However, work has almost exclusively focused on the efficacy of these strategies in preventing initial detection, d...

The cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, provides a fascinating opportunity to investigate the mechanisms of camouflage as it rapidly changes its body patterns in response to the visual environment. We investigated how edge information determines camouflage responses through the use of spatially high-pass filtered 'objects' and of isolated edges. We then investigated how the body pattern responds to ...

Diverse functions have been assigned to the visual appearance of webs, spiders and web decorations, including prey attraction, predator deterrence and camouflage. Here, we review the pertinent literature, focusing on potential camouflage and mimicry. Webs are often difficult to detect in a heterogeneous visual environment. Static and dynamic web distortions are used to escape visual detection b...