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. 2021 Dec 23:15:761174.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.761174. eCollection 2021.

Intermediate, Wholistic Shape Representation in Object Recognition: A Pre-Attentive Stage of Processing?

Jarrod Hollis  1 , Glyn W Humphreys  2 , Peter M Allen  1
Affiliations

Intermediate, Wholistic Shape Representation in Object Recognition: A Pre-Attentive Stage of Processing?

Jarrod Hollis et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .

Abstract

Evidence is presented for intermediate, wholistic visual representations of objects and non-objects that are computed online and independent of visual attention. Short-term visual priming was examined between visually similar shapes, with targets either falling at the (valid) location cued by primes or at another (invalid) location. Object decision latencies were facilitated when the overall shapes of the stimuli were similar irrespective of whether the location of the prime was valid or invalid, with the effects being equally large for object and non-object targets. In addition, the effects were based on the overall outlines of the stimuli and low spatial frequency components, not on local parts. In conclusion, wholistic shape representations based on outline form, are rapidly computed online during object recognition. Moreover, activation of common wholistic shape representations prime the processing of subsequent objects and non-objects irrespective of whether they appear at attended or unattended locations. Rapid derivation of wholistic form provides a key intermediate stage of object recognition.

Keywords: attention; intermediate; object; shape; vision; wholistic.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Examples of the experimental pairings from experiment 1 (top figure). Examples of whole, shape, fragment, and components primes and target from experiments 2–6 (middle figure). An example of the high spatial frequency and low spatial frequency primes and target from experiment 7 (bottom figure).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Trial sequence for experiments 1–4 and 7 (top figure) experiment 5 middle figure) and experiment 6 (bottom figure).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean RT for experiments 1–7. Error bars illustrate the 95% CI for cue × relation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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