Strength of object representation: its key role in object-based attention for determining the competition result between Gestalt and top-down objects.

Abstract

It was found in previous studies that two types of objects (rectangles formed according to the Gestalt principle and Chinese words formed in a top-down fashion) can both induce an object-based effect. The aim of the present study was to investigate how the strength of an object representation affects the result of the competition between these two types of objects based on research carried out by Liu, Wang and Zhou [(2011) Acta Psychologica, 138(3), 397-404]. In Experiment 1, the rectangles were filled with two different colors to increase the strength of Gestalt object representation, and we found that the object effect changed significantly for the different stimulus types. Experiment 2 used Chinese words with various familiarities to manipulate the strength of the top-down object representation. As a result, the object-based effect induced by rectangles was observed only when the Chinese word familiarity was low. These results suggest that the strength of object representation determines the result of competition between different types of objects.