Department of Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2022 Jul 13;12(1):11922. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-15850-y.
Humans efficiently recognize complex scenes by grouping multiple features and objects into ensembles. It has been suggested that ensemble processing does not require, or even impairs, conscious discrimination of individual element properties. The present study examined whether ensemble perception requires phenomenal awareness of elements. We asked observers to judge the mean orientation of a line-based texture pattern whose central region was made invisible by backward masks. Masks were composed of either a Mondrian pattern (Exp. 1) or of an annular contour (Exp. 2) which, unlike the Mondrian, did not overlap spatially with elements in the central region. In the Mondrian-mask experiment, perceived mean orientation was determined only by visible elements outside the central region. However, in the annular-mask experiment, perceived mean orientation matched the mean orientation of all elements, including invisible elements within the central region. Results suggest that the visual system can compute spatial ensembles even without phenomenal awareness of stimuli.
人类通过将多个特征和对象组合成集合来有效地识别复杂场景。有人认为，集合处理不需要，甚至会损害对单个元素属性的有意识辨别。本研究考察了集合感知是否需要对元素的现象意识。我们要求观察者判断基于线的纹理图案的平均方向，该图案的中心区域被向后的掩蔽物变得不可见。掩蔽物由蒙德里安图案（实验 1）或环形轮廓（实验 2）组成，与蒙德里安不同的是，它们在空间上与中央区域的元素不重叠。在蒙德里安掩蔽实验中，感知的平均方向仅由中央区域外的可见元素决定。然而，在环形掩蔽实验中，感知的平均方向与所有元素的平均方向相匹配，包括中央区域内不可见的元素。结果表明，即使没有对刺激的现象意识，视觉系统也可以计算空间集合。
