Abstract
Visualimage segmentation is the process by which the visual system groups features that are part of a single shape. Is image segmentation a bottom-up or an interactive process? In Experiments 1 and 2, we presented subjects with two overlapping shapes and asked them to determine whether two probed locations were on the same shape or on different shapes. The availability of top-down support was manipulated by presenting either upright or rotated letters. Subjects were fastest to respond when the shapes corresponded to familiar shapes—the upright letters. In Experiment 3, we used a variant of this segmentation task to rule out the possibility that subjects performed same/different judgments after segmentation and recognition of both letters. Finally, in Experiment 4,we ruled out the possibility that the advantage for upright letters was merely due to faster recognition of upright letters relative to rotated letters. The results suggested that the previous effects were not due to faster recognition of upright letters; stimulus familiarity influenced segmentation per se. The results are discussed in terms of an interactive model of visual image segmentation.
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This research was conducted while the first author was at Carnegie Mellon University. The first author was supported in part by the Neural Processes in Cognition Program (NSF Award BIR 9014347), NIMH Training Grant 2T32 MHI9102-06, and a Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research award; the second author was supported by ONR Grant NOOOI4-91-Jl546, NIMH Grant ROI MH48274, NIH Career Development Award K04-NSOI405, and Grant 90-36 from the McDonnell-Pew Program in Cognitive Neuroscience.
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Vecera, S.P., Farah, M.J. Is visual image segmentation a bottom-up or an interactive process?. Perception & Psychophysics 59, 1280–1296 (1997). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214214
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214214