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Detecting spatial patterns is a fundamental task solved by the human visual system. Two important constraints on detection performance are the variability that is found in natural scenes and the degradation of the image that occurs due to optical blurring and non-homogenous sampling of the retinal ganglion cell (RGC) mosaic across the visual field. Furthermore, most previous studies of detection performance have been conducted in the fovea with additive targets. However, image cues are different with occluding targets so these studies may not generalize well to occluding targets presented in the periphery. Here, we report eccentricity thresholds (eccentricity for 70% correct detection) for four different occluding targets presented in natural backgrounds at varying, but known, distances from the fovea. The luminance and contrast of the targets was fixed, and precise experimental control of the statistics (luminance …