Allgemeine und Biologische Psychologie, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
Center for Mind, Brain and Behaviour, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
J Vis. 2023 Feb 1;23(2):1. doi: 10.1167/jov.23.2.1.
The perceptual representation of our environment does not only involve what we actually can see, but also inferences about what is hidden from our sight. For example, in amodal completion, simple contours or surfaces are filled-in behind occluding objects allowing for a complete representation. This is important for many everyday tasks, such as visual search, foraging, and object handling. Although there is support for completion of simple patterns from behavioral and neurophysiological studies, it is unclear if these mechanisms extend to complex, irregular patterns. Here, we show that the number of hidden objects on partially occluded surfaces is underestimated. Observers did not consider accurately the number of visible objects and the proportion of occlusion to infer the number of hidden objects, although these quantities were perceived accurately and reliably. However, visible objects were not simply ignored: estimations of hidden objects increased when the visible objects formed a line across the occluder and decreased when the visible objects formed a line outside of the occluder. Confidence ratings for numerosity estimation were similar for fully visible and partially occluded surfaces. These results suggest that perceptual inferences about what is hidden in our environment can be very inaccurate und underestimate the complexity of the environment.
我们对环境的感知表现不仅涉及我们实际能看到的东西，还包括对我们视线之外的事物的推断。例如，在无模态完型中，简单的轮廓或表面会在遮挡物后面填充，从而形成完整的表示。这对于许多日常任务很重要，例如视觉搜索、觅食和物体处理。尽管从行为和神经生理学研究中得到了对简单模式完成的支持，但尚不清楚这些机制是否扩展到复杂、不规则的模式。在这里，我们表明，对部分遮挡表面上隐藏物体的数量存在低估。观察者没有准确地考虑可见物体的数量和遮挡的比例来推断隐藏物体的数量，尽管这些数量是准确可靠地感知到的。然而，可见物体并没有被简单地忽略：当可见物体形成一条穿过遮挡物的线时，对隐藏物体的估计会增加，而当可见物体形成一条在遮挡物之外的线时，对隐藏物体的估计会减少。对数量估计的置信度评级对于完全可见和部分遮挡的表面是相似的。这些结果表明，对我们环境中隐藏的事物的感知推断可能非常不准确，并且低估了环境的复杂性。
