A mighty tool not only in perception: Figure-ground mechanisms control binding and retrieval alike

Abstract

Stimulus and response features are linked together into an event file when a response is made towards a stimulus. If some or all linked features repeat, the whole event file (including the previous response) is retrieved, thereby affecting current performance (as measured in so-called binding effects). Applying the figure-ground segmentation principle to such action control experiments, previous research showed that only stimulus features that have a figure-like character led to binding effects, while features in the background did not. Against the background of recent theorizing, integration and retrieval are discussed as separate processes that independently contribute to binding effects (BRAC framework). Thus, previous research did not specify whether figure-ground manipulations exert their modulating influence on integration and/or retrieval. We tested this in three experiments. Participants worked through a sequential distractor-response binding (DRB) task, allowing measurement of binding effects between responses and distractor (color) features. Importantly, we manipulated whether the distractor color was presented as a background feature or as a figure feature. In contrast to previous experiments, we applied this manipulation only to prime displays (Experiment 1), only to probe display (Experiment 2), or varied the figure-ground manipulation orthogonally for primes and probes (Experiment 3). Together the results of all three experiments suggest that figure-ground segmentation affects DRB effects on top of encoding specificity, and that especially the retrieval process is affected by this manipulation.

What Belongs Together Retrieves Together – The Role of Perceptual Grouping in Stimulus-Response Binding and Retrieval

“…Or Hommel et al ( 2014 ) reported that cuing a feature dimension affected only retrieval but not binding. Several other publications also point to the necessity to distinguish between binding and retrieval processes ( Hommel et al, 2014 ; Memelink & Hommel, 2013 ; Mocke et al, 2020 ; Schmalbrock et al, 2021 ; Schmalbrock & Frings, Manuscript submitted for publication, 2021 ). However, the studies by Laub et al ( 2018 ) and Hommel et al ( 2014 ) highlight modulators can target binding and retrieval independently from each other and may have different impacts on both processes.…”

Towards a systematization of brain oscillatory activity in actions

“…For instance, the main assumption of BRAC, that binding, and retrieval should be treated as separate processes each contributing independently to observed behavior, was confirmed. In particular, perceptual variables like salience or figure-ground segmentation have been found to exert their influence particular on binding [22][23][24] , while temporal variables exert their influences independently on binding and retrieval [25][26][27][28][29][30][31] . Predictability of stimulus and effect…”

Another dimension! Using dimension weighting to observe integration and retrieval in localization performance.

“…First, our proposed localization performance might have involved nonspatial discrimination to some degree by that—targets had to be differentiated from distractors. Second, perceptual features such as figure-ground gestalt principles have been found to modulate binding effects (e.g., Frings & Rothermund, 2017; Schmalbrock & Frings, 2022), leaving the possible modulations of perceiving a target as a single stimulus in an array or as one giant stimulus. To conclude, the observation of a binding pattern might have—to some degree—hinged on the presence of distractors (cf.…”