Perception of positional relationships between line segments in eccentric vision

The encoding of positional relationships between pattern elements in eccentric vision was studied with different patterns consisting of the same short line segments in different positions. In each trial two stimulus patterns were flashed one above the other and the subject had to decide whether the patterns were identical or mirror symmetric (experiment 1) or whether the patterns were the same or different (experiments 2 and 3). The ability to discriminate between identical and mirror symmetric patterns was reduced in eccentric vision, even when the patterns were size-scaled according to the cortical magnification factor and thus the patterns were similarly visible at the different eccentricities. The results agree with the notion that eccentric vision is inferior to central vision in tasks which require proper encoding of information about the relative positions of pattern elements.