Two issues concerning the effects of visual pattern goodness on information processing time were investigated: the role of memory vs. encoding and the role of individual stimulus goodness vs. stimulus similarity. A sequential "same-different" task was used to provide differentiation of target item or memory effects from display item or encoding effects. Experiment 1 used four alternative stimuli in each block of trials. The results showed that good patterns were processed faster than poor patterns for both "same" and "different" responses. Furthermore, the goodness of the target item had a greater effect on reaction time than did the goodness of the display item, indicating that memory is more important than encoding in producing faster processing of good stimuli. Effects of interstimulus similarity on processing time were minimal, although isolation of good stimuli in a similarity space could explain many of the results. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1, despite the fact that differences in similarity space had been minimized by using only two alternative stimuli in each block. In addition, the speed of processing a "same" pair was essentially independent of the particular alternative stimulus in a block. These results suggest that in this task, there is a processing advantage for good stimuli that is stimulus specific, with the effect operating primarily in memory.It is widely recognized that the structure of visual objects affects phenomenal experience, although the precise nature of that effect is not fully known. The Gestalt psychologists made substantial progress in understanding these experiences by enumerating characteristics of patterns that made them perceptually "good." More recently, Garner (1962) indicated how such goodness might be related to stimulus information and redundancy. He suggested that for a given pattern, the number of equivalent patterns provided a useful index of what constitutes a good figure: The fewer the number of equivalent patterns, the better the given pattern will be.For experimental purposes, rotations and reflections serve as one useful specification of equivalent patterns. If rotating and/or reflecting a pattern yields the same pattern, the number of equivalent patterns is one and the pattern is good; if rotating or reflecting a pattern yields several different patterns, the number of equivalent patterns is larger and the pattern is poorer. Garner and Clement (1963) showed that this definition was highly correlated with the way people rate goodness, thus providing a well-defined means of specifying a good or a poor pattern independent of subjective ratings. Processing Consequences of GoodnessUsing a variety of information processing tasks, it has been found that good patterns are processed more efficiently than poor patterns, as measured by time or by errors. Since it has been shown that there exists a reliable processing advantage for good patterns, recent research has been primarily concerned with establishing the nature of that effect. In particular, t...
An eye-tracking study of face and object recognition was conducted to clarify the character of face gaze in autistic spectrum disorders. Experimental participants were a group of individuals diagnosed with Asperger's disorder or high-functioning autistic disorder according to their medical records and confirmed by the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R). Controls were selected on the basis of age, gender, and educational level to be comparable to the experimental group. In order to maintain attentional focus, stereoscopic images were presented in a virtual reality (VR) headset in which the eye-tracking system was installed. Preliminary analyses show impairment in face recognition, in contrast with equivalent and even superior performance in object recognition among participants with autism-related diagnoses, relative to controls. Experimental participants displayed less fixation on the central face than did control-group participants. The findings, within the limitations of the small number of subjects and technical difficulties encountered in utilizing the helmet-mounted display, suggest an impairment in face processing on the part of the individuals in the experimental group. This is consistent with the hypothesis of disruption in the first months of life, a period that may be critical to typical social and cognitive development, and has important implications for selection of appropriate targets of intervention.
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