No effect of spatial phase randomisation on direction discrimination in dense random element patterns

Two computational strategies have been proposed for motion analysis in the human visual system. Energy-based schemes involve detection of spatiotemporal Fourier energy in the frequency components comprising a moving pattern. Edge-based schemes track shifts in the position of local edges in the pattern over time. This paper describes a stimulus manipulation, spatial phase randomisation, that acts as a diagnostic test for the involvement of energy-based processes, and describes the results of two experiments which apply the manipulation to random element patterns. Both experiments compared direction discrimination performance in patterns before and after the spatial phase of their components was randomised in the Fourier domain. For dense patterns, there was no effect of phase randomisation on the maximum displacement supporting reliable direction discrimination, indicating that energy-based responses were dominant. For sparse patterns, a significant effect of phase randomisation was obtained, indicating a greater role for edge-based responses.