Department of Psychology, University of Denver, 2155 S Race St, Frontier Hall, Denver, CO, 80210, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2021 Apr;83(3):982-997. doi: 10.3758/s13414-020-02109-9.
Most visual scenes contain information at different spatial scales, including the local and global, or the detail and gist. Global processes have become increasingly implicated in research examining summary statistical perception, initially as the output of ensemble coding, and more recently as a gating mechanism for selecting which information is included in the averaging process itself. Yet local and global processing are known to be rapidly integrated by the visual system, and it is plausible that global-level information, like spatial organization, may be included as an input during ensemble coding. We tested this hypothesis using an ensemble shape-perception task in which observers evaluated the mean aspect ratios of sets of ellipses. In addition to varying the aspect ratios of the individual shapes, we independently varied the spatial arrangements of the sets so that they had either flat or tall organizations at the global level. We found that observers made precise summary judgments about the average aspect ratios of the sets by integrating information from multiple shapes. More importantly, global flat and tall organizations were incorporated into ensemble judgments about the sets; summary judgments were biased in the directions of the global spatial arrangements on each trial. This global-to-local integration even occurred when the global organizations were masked. Our results demonstrate that the process of summary representation can include information from both the local and global scales. The gist is not just an output of ensemble representation - it can be included as an input to the mechanism itself.
大多数视觉场景包含不同空间尺度的信息，包括局部和全局，或细节和要点。全局过程在研究摘要统计感知时变得越来越重要，最初作为整体编码的输出，最近作为选择哪些信息被包括在平均过程本身的门控机制。然而，局部和全局处理被认为是由视觉系统快速整合的，并且全局级别的信息，如空间组织，可能作为整体编码过程的输入被包括在内，这是合理的。我们使用一个整体形状感知任务来检验这个假设，在这个任务中，观察者评估一组椭圆的平均纵横比。除了改变单个形状的纵横比之外，我们还独立地改变了集合的空间排列，使得它们在全局水平上具有平坦或高的组织。我们发现，观察者通过整合来自多个形状的信息，对集合的平均纵横比进行了精确的摘要判断。更重要的是，全局平坦和高的组织被纳入了集合的整体判断；在每次试验中，摘要判断都偏向于全局空间排列的方向。即使全局组织被掩蔽，这种全局到局部的整合仍然存在。我们的结果表明，摘要表示的过程可以包括来自局部和全局尺度的信息。要点不仅仅是整体表示的输出——它可以作为机制本身的输入被包括在内。
