Texture segregation with luminance and chromatic contrast

Preattentive texture discrimination was investigated using low spatial frequency texture elements. The contrast between the texture elements and the background was either purely luminance or purely chromatic, or some combination of both these types of contrast. The threshold to discriminate correctly the location of a different textured region was obtained from each subject, as was each subject's threshold to detect the elements of the texture. Using the ratio of texture to element detection as a measure of the effectiveness of texture discrimination, little difference could be found between the perception of luminance or chromatic texture. However, there were large and significant variations among subjects with otherwise normal colour vision.