Kubilius Jonas, Sleurs Charlotte, Wagemans Johan
Brain & Cognition, KU Leuven, Belgium.
Iperception. 2017 Apr 3;8(2):2041669517699628. doi: 10.1177/2041669517699628. eCollection 2017 Mar-Apr.
According to Recognition-By-Components theory, object recognition relies on a specific subset of three-dimensional shapes called . In particular, these configurations constitute a powerful cue to three-dimensional object reconstruction because their two-dimensional projection remains viewpoint-invariant. While a large body of literature has demonstrated sensitivity to changes in these so-called nonaccidental configurations, it remains unclear what information is used in establishing such sensitivity. In this study, we explored the possibility that nonaccidental configurations can already be inferred from the basic constituents of objects, namely, their edges. We constructed a set of stimuli composed of two lines corresponding to various nonaccidental properties and configurations underlying the distinction between geons, including collinearity, alignment, curvature of contours, curvature of configuration axis, expansion, cotermination, and junction type. Using a simple visual search paradigm, we demonstrated that participants were faster at detecting targets that differed from distractors in a nonaccidental property than in a metric property. We also found that only some but not all of the observed sensitivity could have resulted from simple low-level properties of our stimuli. Given that such sensitivity emerged from a configuration of only two lines, our results support the view that nonaccidental configurations could be encoded throughout the visual processing hierarchy even in the absence of object context.
根据部件识别理论，物体识别依赖于一组特定的三维形状，称为 。特别地，这些构型构成了三维物体重建的有力线索，因为它们的二维投影保持视角不变。虽然大量文献已经证明了对这些所谓非偶然构型变化的敏感性，但尚不清楚在建立这种敏感性时使用了哪些信息。在本研究中，我们探讨了非偶然构型是否已经可以从物体的基本组成部分，即它们的边缘中推断出来的可能性。我们构建了一组由两条线组成的刺激，这些线对应于geons之间区别的各种非偶然属性和构型，包括共线性、对齐、轮廓曲率、构型轴曲率、扩展、共端点和连接类型。使用简单的视觉搜索范式，我们证明参与者在检测与干扰物在非偶然属性上不同的目标时比在度量属性上更快。我们还发现，观察到的敏感性中只有一些而不是全部可能是由我们刺激的简单低级属性导致的。鉴于这种敏感性仅从两条线的构型中出现，我们的结果支持这样一种观点，即即使在没有物体背景的情况下，非偶然构型也可以在整个视觉处理层次中进行编码。
