Viewpoint Dependence in Visual and Haptic Object Recognition

TLDR

Object recognition is best from familiar views and poorer from previously occluded views. Haptic recognition is also viewpoint‑specific, with hands preferring the back view, and recognition is optimized when learning and testing involve a back‑to‑front rotation; the visual system favors front views while the hand favors back views.

Abstract

On the whole, people recognize objects best when they see the objects from a familiar view and worse when they see the objects from views that were previously occluded from sight. Unexpectedly, we found haptic object recognition to be viewpoint-specific as well, even though hand movements were unrestricted. This viewpoint dependence was due to the hands preferring the back “view” of the objects. Furthermore, when the sensory modalities (visual vs. haptic) differed between learning an object and recognizing it, recognition performance was best when the objects were rotated back-to-front between learning and recognition. Our data indicate that the visual system recognizes the front view of objects best, whereas the hand recognizes objects best from the back.