Perception of wholes and of their component parts: Some configural superiority effects.

TLDR

Visual pattern recognition theories posit that perception starts by decomposing patterns into component parts such as line segments defined by orientation, length, position, and curvature. The study presents a model outlining preattentive feature discrimination. The authors measured part discriminability in isolation versus configural contexts and propose that configural superiority arises from detecting novel features like corners and intersections formed by proximate parts. Some configural contexts impair or leave unchanged part discriminability, while others markedly enhance it, enabling faster discrimination of patterns differing by a single part than when parts are isolated, indicating that configural superiority operates at the perceptual level.

Abstract

Theories of visual pattern recognition frequently assume that processing begins with an analysis of the pattern into component parts, which are often assumed to be line segments of particular orientations, lengths, positions, and curvatures. The present experiments measured discriminability of these simple parts when presented either in isolation or within configural contexts that provided no formal information useful for the discrimination. Certain contexts either impaired or did not affect performance. Other contexts were found, however, which dramatically improved discriminability. Thus, two patterns which differed only in a single part could be discriminated from each other more quickly than could their distinguishing parts shown in isolation. Further experiments suggest that this "configural superiority" effect influences perceptual components of processing rather than memorial components. The mechanism underlying configural superiority appears to be the detection of novel and distinguishing features, such as corners and intersections, which emerge when parts are placed in close proximity to each other. The outlines of a model for preattentive feature discrimination are presented.