Contour integration in the peripheral field

Contour integration was measured in the normal peripheral field to determin e if an explanation based solely on the known peripheral positional uncerta inty was sufficient to explain performance. The task involved the detection of paths composed of micropatterns with correlated carrier orientations em bedded in a field of similar micropatterns of random position and orientati on (Field, D. J., Hayes A., & Hess, R. F. (1993). Vision Research, 33, 173- 193). The intrinsic positional uncertainty for each eccentric locus was mea sured with the same stimulus and it did not account for levels of periphera l performance. We show that peripheral performance on this task does not ge t worse with eccentricity beyond about 10 degrees and that these results ca n be modeled by simple filtering without any subsequent cellular linking in teractions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.