Smits J T, Vos P G
Department of Psychology, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Perception. 1987;16(1):121-31. doi: 10.1068/p160121.
Two categorisation experiments are reported in which the perceptual phenomenon that some simple arrays of discrete dots appear as a continuous curve whereas others are perceived as an angular contour or as consisting of separate groups of dots was investigated. Triplets of dots were presented in the first experiment, and complete or incomplete regular dot polygons (ie dots positioned on the vertices of imaginary regular polygons) in the second. In both experiments the perception of a curve versus an angle was determined mainly by the relative orientations of the dots, ie by the angles between successive virtual lines, whereas the lengths of the virtual lines had relatively little influence. In experiment 2 the number of displayed dots was shown to be a second independent factor for perceiving continuity. These results are in agreement with results from experiments on dipole textures discrimination, and suggest the psychological existence and importance of virtual lines in the visual processing of dot stimuli.
本文报告了两项分类实验，其中研究了一种感知现象：一些由离散点组成的简单阵列看起来像一条连续曲线，而其他的则被感知为有角的轮廓或由单独的点组组成。在第一个实验中呈现的是三点组，在第二个实验中呈现的是完整或不完整的规则点多边形（即位于假想正多边形顶点上的点）。在这两个实验中，曲线与角的感知主要由点的相对方向决定，即由连续虚拟线之间的角度决定，而虚拟线的长度影响相对较小。在实验2中，显示的点数被证明是感知连续性的第二个独立因素。这些结果与偶极纹理辨别实验的结果一致，并表明虚拟线在点刺激的视觉处理中在心理上的存在及其重要性。
