Abstract.
In certain textured patterns, texture is perceived differently at fixation in comparison to the periphery, such that a physically uniform stimulus yields a non-uniform percept. We call this the Honeycomb illusion and we discuss it in relation to the extinction illusion (Ninio & Stevens, 2000). The effect remains strong despite multiple fixations, dynamic changes, or manipulations of size of the texture elements. Vision provides us with a highly detailed and stable representation of the environment despite changes in retinal spatial resolution and dramatic temporal changes across saccades. The extinction illusion and the Honeycomb illusion suggest that this representation is not always achieved using the memory of previous fixations or using extrapolation based on the pattern in central vision.