Prof. Greg Francis1PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityObject featuresPSY 310Greg FrancisLecture 16What’s odd here?Purdue UniversityPerceptual organization The Gestalt laws of perceptual organization Pragnanz (good figure) Similarity Good continuation Proximity Common Fate Familiarity And other similar kinds of laws Are all about putting together information in a scene to identifyobjects An important part of this is figure-ground separationProf. Greg Francis2PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityFigure-ground Objects occlude other objectsPurdue UniversityFigure-ground How do you know the edge of the tree belongs to the tree?Prof. Greg Francis3PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityFigure-ground Part of the explanation is that other contours seemto go behind the treePurdue UniversityFigure-ground The common color of the house and archway helps connectthose parts of the image Which implies that the tree is in frontProf. Greg Francis4PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityContours An important part of this process is identify to which side anedge “belongs” Here, the white-to-black edge belongs to the white squarePurdue UniversityContours An important part of this process is identify to which side an edge“belongs” Here, the black edge belongs to the black half-moonProf. Greg Francis5PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityContours The black side of the edge is the same in both casesPurdue UniversityBackground Our perception of what we experience in the backgrounddepends on the foreground You know this is a checkerboardProf. Greg Francis6PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityBackground Yet, we sense that the color of the region behind the gray discs is thesame as the surrounding checksPurdue UniversityGrouping Identifying thispattern ofelements isdifficult Why?Prof. Greg Francis7PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityGrouping It’s easier with anoccluder Why?Purdue UniversityGrouping Camouflage is basically working on this principleProf. Greg Francis8PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityChoices Figure-ground is significant because it seems thevisual system makes a “choice” about things You are not aware of making these choices, it’s not adecision in the traditional sensePurdue UniversityChoices Figure-ground is significant because itseems the visual system makes a“choice” about things You are not aware of making thesechoices, it’s not a decision in thetraditional sense If you see one part of an image asfigure, it cannot simultaneously alsobe part of the ground We can study the kinds of choicesthat the visual system makesProf. Greg Francis9PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityChoices Generally, smaller areas seem to be part of figurePurdue UniversityChoices Symmetric things seem to be figuresProf. Greg Francis10PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a scene We’ll try a demonstration of this effectPurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how you tendto interpret a sceneProf. Greg Francis11PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a scenePurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a sceneProf. Greg Francis12PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a scenePurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a sceneProf. Greg Francis13PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a scenePurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a sceneProf. Greg Francis14PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a scenePurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a sceneProf. Greg Francis15PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a scenePurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a sceneNow everybody for the next slideProf. Greg Francis16PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityFamiliarity What you decide is figure or ground also depends on how youtend to interpret a scenePurdue UniversityObjects One way to study object perception is to measure how long ittakes us to identify different objects Sounds easy, but it can be difficult One common technique is the visual search paradigm A target may or may not be presented among a set of distracters Your task is to identify whether the target is present or not The experimenter varies the properties of the target anddistracters To identify what properties/features of objects are conducive to thetaskProf. Greg Francis17PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityCogLab feature search Few distracters -easyPurdue UniversityCogLab feature search Many distracters - still easyProf. Greg Francis18PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityConjunctive search Few distracters - fairly easyPurdue UniversityConjunctive search Many distracters - difficultProf. Greg Francis19PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual ProcessesPurdue UniversityVisual search Group CogLab data (93 observers)Purdue UniversityVisual search Interpretation Feature searches do not vary with number of distracters» feature searches “pop-out,” the distracters are irrelevant Feature present = feature absent» no searching is required, the reaction time just reflects the timeto make the response Conjunctive searches increase RT with number of distracters» must search individual items and compare with target to see if
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