Perceptual grouping by infants and preschool children (original) (raw)
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Objects That Work Together May Be Perceptually Grouped
2005
Perceiving functional relationships between objects may be fundamental to understanding visual environments. Even the identification of objects in a scene may be influenced by the functional relations that exist among those objects. In two experiments, normal observers identified a briefly-exposed target object presented with a semantically associated or unassociated distractor object. The target object and distractor were either arranged to work together, or not to do so. Identification was more accurate when target objects were arranged to work with an associated distractor than when they were arranged so as not to work with the distractor. In contrast, identification was worse when target objects worked with unassociated distractors than when they did not. A sensitivity to change in stimulus onset asynchrony suggested that the former (facilitatory) effect was perceptual in nature. We propose this as evidence that sets of objects engaged in familiar functional relationships are perceptually or attentionally grouped.
Influence of past experience on perceptual grouping
Psychological science, 2002
We used primed matching to examine the microgenesis of perceptual organization for familiar (upright letters) and unfamiliar (inverted letters) visual configurations that varied in the connectedness between their line components. The configurations of upright letters were available for priming as early as 40 ms, irrespective of connectedness between their line components. The configurations of connected inverted-letter primes were also available this early, but the configurations of disconnected inverted letters were not available until later These results show that past experience contributes to the early grouping of disconnected line segments into configurations. These findings suggest an interactive model of perceptual organization in which both image-based properties (e.g., connectedness) and input from object memories contribute to perceptual organization.
Attentional requirements in perceptual grouping depend on the processes involved in the organization
Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics
Previous studies on the role of attention in perceptual grouping have yielded contradicting findings, some suggesting that grouping requires attention and others indicating that it does not. Kimchi and Razpurker-Apfeld (Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 11(4), 687-696, 2004) showed that attentional demands in grouping could vary according to the processes involved. The current study expanded on this, examining whether attentional demands vary for (a) different grouping principles and (b) as a function of contingent processing of element segregation and shape formation. We used the inattention paradigm with an online measure, in which participants engaged in an attentionally demanding changedetection task on a small matrix presented on a taskirrelevant backdrop of grouped elements. The backdrop grouping changed or stayed the same independently of any change in the target. Congruency effects produced by changes in backdrop grouping on target-change judgments indicate that the backdrop grouping was accomplished under inattention. The results showed congruency effects when grouping formed columns/rows by proximity but not by shape similarity, and when grouping into a distinct shape by collinearity did not involve element segregation. No congruency effects were found when grouping into a shape by collinearity or connectedness involved element segregation, except when connectedness was combined with color similarity. These results suggest that attentional demands depend on the combination of grouping principles and the complexity of the processes involved in the organization. These findings provide further support for the view that perceptual organization is a multiplicity of processes that vary in attentional demands.
Acta Psychologica, 2003
Recent research on perceptual grouping is described with particular emphasis on identifying the level(s) at which grouping factors operate. Contrary to the classical view of grouping as an early, two-dimensional, imagebased process, recent experimental results show that it is strongly influenced by phenomena related to perceptual constancy, such as binocular depth perception, lightness constancy, amodal completion, and illusory contours.
The repetition discrimination task: An objective method for studying perceptual grouping
Perception & Psychophysics, 2007
Five experiments are reported that demonstrate the use of the repetition discrimination task (RDT) to study perceptual grouping effects objectively and quantitatively. Experiments 1 and 3 validate the method by measuring grouping based on proximity, color similarity, common region, and element connectedness. Experiment 2 compares the RDT effects for proximity grouping to explicit subjective ratings of grouping strength in identical displays. Experiments 4 and 5 investigate the effects of size and orientation of surrounding ovals in displays in which competing organizations are present. In each case, the RDT produces clear, consistent patterns of response times that are consistent with predictions based on grouping. It thus represents an objective method for studying the full range of grouping phenomena originally described by Wertheimer.
Grouping by proximity: Selective attention measures
Perception & Psychophysics, 1975
The role of element proximity in perceptual grouping was examined in tasks requmng speeded discrimination of two-element visual patterns. Grouping of two elements was defined as the failure of attention to be focused on one element selectively in filtering tasks where only that one element was relevant to the discrimination. Failure of selective attention was measured by the degree of interference caused by variation of the irrelevant element. Grouping was shown to diminish monotonically as the spacing between two elements was increased. At a given spacing, grouping could be reduced or eliminated by the introduction of a third element into the stimulus field, presumably because the addition of this element triggered a reorganization of the perceptual field into a new grouping structure. Grouping appeared to facilitate performance on condensation tasks requiring distributed attention, to the degree that the condensation tasks were actually easier than the filtering tasks at close proximities. Paradoxically, for some tasks, moving an irrelevant element away from a relevant one actually impaired performance, suggesting that paying attention to irrelevant information could be beneficial. This result, if generalizable, suggests that grouping be conceptualized not as an automatic process under preattentive control but as an optional process under strategic control. This paper is concerned with two aspects of the problem 01 perceptual organization of visual arrays . The first is the degree to which perceptual organization is under the control of specitic parameters of the stimulus array, as opposed to cognitive (strategic) factors within the observer. The second is the establishment of experimental measures of organizational processes. This latter issue is much more than simply a methodological one, for in order to measure organization a theory is required that explains just what organization means, and how and where organization enters into the processing of perceptual information. The Gestalt "laws" of course represented an attempt to answer the first question. Certain stimulus variables. some well defined (proximity) and some not so well defined (similarity), can be shown to have clear effects on the wayan observer reports his perception of stimulus arrays. The conclusions one can draw from these demonstrations. as compelling as the perceptual effects may be, are limited, however. to the domain of phenomenology and say little about the underlying processes that shape our perceptual experiences. What is required are performance measures. rather than subjective reports. of perceptual organization. argued that if organization is more than an epiphenomenon. there
Dynamics of perceptual grouping: similarities in the organization of visual and auditory groups
In vision, the Gestalt principles of perceptual organization are generally well understood and remain a subject of detailed analysis. However, the possibility for a unified theory of grouping across visual and auditory modalities remains largely unexplored. Here we present examples of auditory and visual Gestalt grouping, which share important organizational properties. In particular, similarities are revealed between grouping processes in apparent motion, auditory streaming, and static 2-D displays. Given the substantial difference in the context, within which the phenomena in question occur (auditory vs. visual, static vs. dynamic), these similarities suggest that the dynamics of perceptual organization could be associated with a common (possibly central) mechanism. If the relevance of supramodal invariants of grouping is granted, the question arises as to whether they can be studied empirically. We propose that a force-field theory, based on a differential-geometric interpretation of perceptual space could provide a suitable starting point for a systematic exploration of the subjective properties of certain classes of auditory and visual grouping phenomena.
The effects of grouping on the learning and long-term retention of spatial and temporal information
Journal of Memory and Language, 2003
In three experiments, participants learned either the temporal sequence or the spatial arrangement of a list of 18 words, presented 1 at a time, each in a different location within a vertical array. The words were either ungrouped or grouped into 2 sets of 9, with each set divided into 3 subsets. In Experiment 1, grouping aided the learning of spatial arrangement but not temporal sequence. In Experiment 2, learning was made more difficult for half of the participants by increasing the rate of word presentation, but grouping did not affect the learning of temporal order information in either difficulty condition. In Experiment 3, phonological processing was blocked by articulatory suppression for half of the participants, but grouping still did not affect learning temporal order. It is concluded that participants take advantage of grouping to learn spatial but not temporal information, thereby challenging unitary accounts of learning order information.
The visual system groups close things together. Previous studies of grouping by proximity have failed to measure grouping strength or to assess the effect of configuration. We do both. We reanalyze data from an experiment by in which they briefly presented multi-stable dot patterns that can be perceptually organized into alternative collections of parallel strips of dots, and in which they parametrically varied the distances between dots and the angles between alternative organizations. Our analysis shows that relative strength of grouping into strips of dots of a particular orientation approximates a decreasing exponential function of the relative distance between dots in that orientation. The configural or wholistic properties that were varied-such as angular separations of the alternative for their helpful suggestions; A. Jalis for his excellent programming, and J. A. Hollier, N. Greenberg, J. Seiters, and T. Yang for their unstinting help as observers. Finally, we thank J. Seiters and M. Snyder for their assistance in running experiments.
Transfer of associative grouping to novel perceptual contexts in infancy
Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 2011
Learning can be highly adaptive if associations learned in one context are generalized to novel contexts. We examined the development of such generalization in infancy in the context of grouping. In Experiment 1, 3-to 4-month-olds and 6-to 7-month-olds were habituated to shapes grouped via the organizational principle of common region and were tested with familiar and novel pairs as determined by the principle of proximity. Older infants generalized from common region to proximity, but younger infants did not. Younger infants failed to generalize when the task was easier (Experiment 2), and their failure was not due to inability to group via proximity (Experiment 3). However, in Experiment 4, even younger infants generalized grouping on the basis of connectedness to proximity. Thus, the ability to transfer learned associations of shapes to novel contexts is evident early in life, although it continues to undergo quantitative change during infancy. Moreover, the operation of this generalization mechanism may be induced by means of bootstrapping onto functional organizational principles, which is consistent with a developmental framework in which core processes scaffold learning.
The Relation between Grouping Cues in the Gestalt Theory
The main purpose of the current study was to examine whether some grouping of cues in Gestalt theory are more demanding than others or not by using research visual method. 52 postgraduate students (18 males and 34 females) at University of Leicester participated in the research. The results show that an increase in the number of set size from 1 to 15 causes participants to show a low performance. Overall, participants showed the highest performance at Filled conditions to decide an answer, while displayed the lowest performance at the condition of Proximity. Another important point is that participants' reaction times per msec was the lowest at the set size 15, while this reaction time was the highest at the set size 1.Whether participants have a normal visual acuity should be taken into consideration for the further research Grouping Cues in The Gestalt Theory
Familiar interacting object pairs are perceptually grouped
2006
Identification of objects in a scene may be influenced by functional relations among those objects. In this study, observers indicated whether a target object matched a label. Each target was presented with a distractor object, and these were sometimes arranged to interact (as if being used together) and sometimes not to interact. When the distractor was semantically related to the label, identification was more accurate for targets arranged to interact with that distractor. This effect depended on observers' ability to perceptually integrate the stimulus objects, suggesting that it was perceptual in nature. The effect was not attributable to attentional cuing and did not depend on expectation of certain object pairs. These data suggest that familiar functional groupings of objects are perceptually grouped.
Grouping does not require attention
Perception & Psychophysics, 2006
Many theories of visual perception stipulate that Gestalt grouping occurs preattentively. Subjects' failure to report perceiving even salient grouping patterns under conditions of inattention challenges this assumption (see, e.g., Mack, Tang, Tuma, Kahn, & Rock, 1992), but Moore and Egeth (1997) showed that although subjects are indeed unable to identify grouping patterns outside the focus of attention, effects of these patterns on visual perception can be observed when they are assessed using implicit, rather than explicit, measures. However, this finding, which is the only one to date demonstrating grouping effects without attention, is open to an alternative account. In the present study, we eliminated this confound and replicated Moore and Egeth's findings, using the Müller-Lyer illusion (Experir ments 1 and 2). Moreover, we found converging evidence for these findings with a variant of the flanker task (Experiment 3), when the amount of available attentional resources was varied (Experiments 4 and 5). The results reinforce the idea that, although grouping outside the focus of attention cannot be the object of overt report, grouping processes can occur without attention.
Perceptual grouping impairs temporal resolution
Experimental Brain Research, 2007
Performance on multisensory temporal order judgment (TOJ) tasks is enhanced when the sensory stimuli are presented at diVerent locations rather than the same location. In our Wrst experiment, we replicated this result for spatially separated stimuli within the visual modality. In Experiment 2, we investigated the eVect of perceptual grouping on this spatial eVect. Observers performed a visual TOJ task in which two stimuli were presented in a conWguration that encouraged perceptual grouping or not (i.e., one-and two-object conditions respectively). Despite a constant spatial disparity between targets across the two conditions, a smaller just noticeable diVerence (i.e., better temporal resolution) was found when the two targets formed two objects than when they formed one. This eVect of perceptual grouping persisted in Experiment 3 when we controlled for apparent motion by systematically varying the spatial distance between the targets. Thus, in contrast to the putative same-object advantage observed in spatial discrimination tasks, these Wndings indicate that perceptual grouping impairs visual temporal resolution.
Related topics
Cited by
Infant Behavior and Development, 1999
Exogenous (stimulus driven) orienting shows evidence of competition in early infancy. The infant's tendency to detect and orient to a small moving stimulus is affected significantly by the colors and spatial distribution of other static stimuli in the visual field. In previous work infants consistently showed lower detection of the moving stimulus when the side of the field contralateral to this stimulus contained mostly red bars on a white background. The competition in this case was much stronger than when the contralateral field contained mostly green bars. In this experiment we tested the hypothesis that the strength of this competition effect is determined primarily by the color contrasts of the static bars. We found partial support for this hypothesis. The contralateral competition was abolished when the color contrasts of the red and green bars were made more equal by presenting them on yellow backgrounds. This elimination of contralateral competition only occurred, however, when there was substantial luminance contrast also present between these bars and their backgrounds. The competition effect persisted when the luminance contrast was reduced to near zero leaving primarily color contrast. We also found evidence that this competition effect can be produced only by luminance contrast, although the effect was significant only in one of the two experiments. Infants had a difficult time detecting movement when the moving stimulus was defined primarily by color rather than by luminance contrast. These experiments tell us about how different basic features like color, contrast, and movement are weighted in the initial selection of targets of attention.
Frequency ratios and the discrimination of pure tone sequences
Perception & Psychophysics, 1994
We examined the effect of frequency ratios on the discrimination of patterns of alternating pure tones (ABABA). Listeners heard a repeating pattern presented in transposition (same frequency ratios between successive tones, different absolute frequencies) and were required to indicate when the pattern changed (different frequency ratios and absolute frequencies). Changes from patterns with simple frequency ratios to those with more complex ratios were more readily detected than were changes from complex ratios to simpler ratios.
Key membership and implied harmony in Western tonal music: Developmental perspectives
Perception & Psychophysics, 1994
We investigated the role of key membership and implied harmony in adults' and children's perception of tone sequences. Listeners were evaluated on their ability to detect three types of changes in one note of a well-structured Western tonal melody. In one change (out-of-key) the new note was not in the basis key, in another (out-of-harmony) it was in the key but not in the implied harmony, and in the third (within-harmony) it was in both the key and the implied harmony. Adults and 7-year-olds performed better on the out-of-key and out-of-harmony changes than on the within-harmony change, reflecting their implicit knowledge of key membership and implied harmony. Five-year-olds performed better on the out-of-key change than on the other two changes, reflecting the influence of key membership but not implied harmony. We consider the developmental precedence of key membership over implied harmony in the context of cross-cultural and theoretical perspectives.
Effects of harmonics on relative pitch discrimination in a musical context
Perception & Psychophysics, 1996
The contribution of different harmonics to pitch salience in a musical context was examined by requiring subjects to discriminate a small (% semitone) pitch change in one note of a melody that repeated in transposition. In Experiment 1,performance was superior when more harmonics were present (first five vs. fundamental alone) and when the second harmonic (of tones consisting of the first two harmonics) was in tune compared with when it was out of tune. In Experiment 2, the effects ofharmonies 6 and 8, which stand in octave-equivalent simple ratios to the fundamental (2:3 and 1:2, respectively) were compared with harmonics 5 and 7, which stand in more complex ratios (4:5 and 4:7, respectively). When the harmonics fused into a single percept (tones consisting of harmonics 1,2, and one of 5, 6, 7, or 8), performance was higher when harmonics 6 or 8 were present than when harmonics 5 or 7 were present. When the harmonics did not fuse into a single percept (tones consisting of the fundamental and one of 5, 6, 7, or 8), there was no effect of ratio simplicity.
Pitch characteristics of infant-directed speech affect infants’ ability to discriminate vowels
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2002
"Baby talk" or speech directed to prelinguistic infants is high in pitch and has exaggerated pitch contours (up/down patterns of pitch change) across languages and cultures. Using an acoustic model, we predicted that the large pitch contours of infant-directed speech should improve infants' ability to discriminate vowels. On the other hand, the same model predicted that high pitch would not benefit, and might actually impair, infants' ability to discriminate vowels. We then confirmed these predictions experimentally. We conclude that the exaggerated pitch contours of infant-directed speech aid infants' acquisition of vowel categories but that the high pitch of infant-directed speech must serve another function, such as attracting infants' attention or aiding emotional communication.
Perception & Psychophysics, 2001
The effect of intensity and pitch accents on the perception of timing was examined in two experiments using a signal detection procedure. Analyses of sensitivity and response bias revealed opposite effects of intensity and pitch accents under similar conditions. Time intervals preceding intensity accents were perceived as longer, but time intervals preceding pitch accents were perceived as shorter. These results showed that listeners found it easier to detect timing variations that were contrary to expectations, as compared with variations that were consistent with expectations. In the present case, listeners should have expected shorter time intervals before intensity accents and longer intervals before pitch accents. The fact that the effects were observed with stimuli that had minimal musical structure demonstrated the contribution of psychoacoustic factors to such phenomena.
Phrasing influences the recognition of melodies
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1997
One critical step in the processing of complex auditory information (i.e., language and music) involves organizing such information into hierarchical units, such as phrases. In this study, musically trained and untrained listeners' recognition memory for short, naturalistic melodies varying in their phrase structure was tested. For musically trained subjects, memory for information preceding a phrase boundary was disrupted and memory for information subsequent to a phrase boundary was enhanced relative to memory in similar temporal locations for excerpts not containing a phrase boundary. Musically untrained listeners, in contrast, showed no such differences as a function of the phrasing of the melody. These findings conform with previous results in both psycholinguistics and musical cognition and suggest that the phrase serves as a functional unit in musical processing, guiding the parsing of musical sequences during perception, along with the structuring of memory for musical passages.
NATURAL MUSICAL INTERVALS:. Evidence From Infant Listeners
Psychological Science, 1996
Ancient and medieval scholars considered tones related by simple (small-integer) ratios to be naturally pleasing, but contemporary scholars attribute the special perceptual status of such sounds to exposure We investigated the possibility of processing predispositions for some tone combinations by evaluating infants' ability to detect subtle changes to patterns of simultaneous and sequential tones Infants detected such changes to pairs of pure tones (intervals) only when the tones were related by simple frequency ratios This was the case for 9-month-old infants tested with harmonic (simultaneous) intervals and for 6-month-old infants tested with melodic (sequential) intervals These results are consistent with a biological basis for the prevalence of particular intervals historically and cross-culturally