A fast parallel algorithm for dot linking in Glass patterns

The human visual system is very good at perceiving structure in complex patterns. 'Glass patterns', constructed from displaced copies of random dot patterns, are examples of this in which the only cues are pairs of matching dots. Stevens has proposed a model that accounts well for human performance at this task. A modified version of this model is proposed here which has a fast implementation on parallel 'pyramid' hardware. The existence of such implementations is highly desirable because human perception takes place very rapidly. The hardware assumed is a stack of cellular arrays each of which covers the image with a different size grid. This architecture allows fast communication between distant parts of the image as long as the amount of information that needs to be sent over long distances is limited. The modified model was found to behave quite similarly to Stevens' model.