Temporal characteristics of the recognition of short lines orientation.

The influence of the number of orientations (3 and 8) and of the magnitude of the angle for identification (45 and 22.5 degrees) on the temporal characteristics of orientation recognition with test lines of different lengths (5.5, 10 and 22') was studied. The time for recognition was shorter for longer stimuli. Both the number of stimuli and the magnitude of the angle influenced the percentage of correct responses. The effects of the number of orientations were weaker than expected for a sequential type of recognition. Therefore, it is assumed that the mechanism of orientation recognition is basically of the detector type even when there is influence of the angle, i.e. under conditions of insufficient orientational selectivity. The distribution of the responses was asymmetric. The degree of asymmetry of the frequencies of the errors depended on the length of the test stimuli and on the number of orientations.