Fig. 1. Creation of the “bubblized” stimuli.

a An original face image was decomposed into five spatial frequency bands using a Laplacian transform. b Small Gaussian apertures (i.e., the bubbles) were then placed at random locations for each spatial frequency band separately. c Finally, the information revealed by the bubbles for each SF band was fused across the five frequency bands to produce one experimental stimulus (bottom image). The authors have obtained consent for publication of the face image depicted in this figure.