Discrimination of third-order Markov constraints within visual displays

Discrimination thresholds were measured for third-order Markov constraints within visual displays. The method permits the cancellation of adjacent second-order differences and of first-order differences. Excellent discrimination of third-order constraints is obtained despite the fact that the average conditional repetition probability and the average run length were invariant. The need to distinguish between local short-term and average long-term analyses for the visual system is briefly discussed.