I have studied the role of relative phase in preattentive visual processing. Preattentive vision occurs rapidly and does not require attention.
Relative phase refers to the positions of sine-wave gratings in relation to one another.
The psychophysical results and the performance of the model in response to the composite grating patterns are compared and discussed. The composite grating patterns were composed of three superimposed sine-wave gratings, rotated 60 deg relative to one another. Click here to view an example of these type of patterns. These patterns are the simplest that show 2-d relative phase differences. The results indicate that both orientation and phase differences can be used as the basis of pattern discrimination.