Abstract
In a glance, the visual system can provide a summary of some kinds of information about objects in a scene. We explore how summary information about orientation is extracted and find that some representations of orientation are privileged over others. Participants judged the average orientation of either a set of 6 bars or 6 circular gratings. For bars, orientation information was carried by object boundary features, while for gratings, orientation was carried by internal surface features. The results showed more accurate averaging performance for bars than for gratings, even when controlling for potential differences in encoding precision for solitary objects. We suggest that, during orientation averaging, the visual system prioritizes object boundaries over surface features. This privilege for boundary features may lead to a better representation of the spatial layout of a scene.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 585-588 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance |
Volume | 38 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2012 |
Keywords
- Boundary features
- Orientation averaging
- Summary representations
- Surface features
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
- Behavioral Neuroscience