Is human object recognition better described by geon structural descriptions or by multiple views? Comment on Biederman and Gerhardstein (1993)

J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 1995 Dec;21(6):1494-505. doi: 10.1037//0096-1523.21.6.1494.

Abstract

Is human object recognition viewpoint dependent or viewpoint invariant under "everyday" conditions? I. Biederman and P.C. Gerhardstein (1993) argued that viewpoint-invariant mechanisms are used almost exclusively. However, our analysis indicates that (a) their conditions for immediate viewpoint invariance lack the generality to characterize a wide range of recognition phenomena, (b) the extensive body of viewpoint-dependent results cannot be dismissed as processing "by-products" or "experimental artifacts," and (c) geon structural descriptions cannot coherently account for category recognition, the domain they are intended to explain. The weight of current evidence supports an exemplar-based multiple-views mechanism as an important component of both exemplar-specific and categorical recognition.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Cognition / physiology*
  • Discrimination, Psychological / physiology*
  • Form Perception / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Rotation
  • Visual Perception / physiology