Intermediate, Wholistic Shape Representation in Object Recognition: A Pre-Attentive Stage of Processing?

Jarrod Hollis,Glyn W Humphreys,Peter M Allen

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2021.761174

Abstract

Evidence is presented for intermediate, wholistic visual representations of objects and non-objects that are computed online and independent of visual attention. Short-term visual priming was examined between visually similar shapes, with targets either falling at the (valid) location cued by primes or at another (invalid) location. Object decision latencies were facilitated when the overall shapes of the stimuli were similar irrespective of whether the location of the prime was valid or invalid, with the effects being equally large for object and non-object targets. In addition, the effects were based on the overall outlines of the stimuli and low spatial frequency components, not on local parts. In conclusion, wholistic shape representations based on outline form, are rapidly computed online during object recognition. Moreover, activation of common wholistic shape representations prime the processing of subsequent objects and non-objects irrespective of whether they appear at attended or unattended locations. Rapid derivation of wholistic form provides a key intermediate stage of object recognition.

Highlights

Visual object recognition involves a series of stages in which different representations of object form are coded
It is assumed that early stages of vision involve the independent coding of local visual elements followed by a grouping of those elements into the part and whole representations of objects (Julész, 1971, 1975, 1981a,b, 1984; Julész et al, 1973, 1978; Julész and Bergen, 1983; Kim and Biederman, 2012)
We examined structural priming from briefly presented primes onto object and non-object targets, for object decisions

Summary

Introduction

Visual object recognition involves a series of stages in which different representations of object form are coded. It is assumed that early stages of vision involve the independent coding of local visual elements followed by a grouping of those elements into the part and whole representations of objects (Julész, 1971, 1975, 1981a,b, 1984; Julész et al, 1973, 1978; Julész and Bergen, 1983; Kim and Biederman, 2012). Much of the behavioural evidence for FIT has been derived from visual search experiments (Treisman and Gelade, 1980; Treisman, 1985) In these classic FIT experiments, the style of the search was manipulated to determine the allocation of attention by manipulating the search criteria

Methods

Results

Conclusion