Object identification as a function of discriminability and learning presentations: The effect of stimulus similarity and canonical frame alignment on aircraft identification.

Abstract

Aircraft that were relatively similar (homogeneous) and relatively dissimilar (heterogeneous) in appearance were studied at orientations either consistent (canonical) or inconsistent (noncanonical) with the environmental frame of reference. At test, participants' identification performance was measured with stimuli rotated to novel orientations within the picture plane. During learning and testing, identification of heterogeneous aircraft was better than that of homogeneous aircraft. At test, only identification of homogeneous aircraft revealed a strong linear degradation of performance as angular disparity between the novel test orientations and the original learning orientations increased. During learning and testing, identification was better for aircraft studied at canonical orientations than for those studied at noncanonical orientations. The results are discussed in terms of object identification, aircraft recognition training, categorization, mental representations, and visual mental rotation.

Helping the cognitive system learn: exaggerating distinctiveness and uniqueness

“…These eight images were divided into two groups of four aircraft on the basis of prior work, using a cluster analysis of similarity ratings to determine the level of inter-similarity between stimuli (see Ashworth & Dror, 2000). From this, a set of four aircraft was selected from different clusters and formed the heterogeneous stimulus set (Fishbed (Mig-21), Galab (G-4), Tomcat (F-14) and Farmer (Mig-19)).…”

Preparing for novelty with diverse training

“…It also only holds for tasks where diversity adds to task difficulty, like categorization and visual search, but not for tasks where diversity of stimuli makes the task easier as for same/different judgments (e.g. Ashworth & Dror, 2000;Doane et al, 1999;Pellegrino et al, 1991).…”

Egocentric and nonegocentric coding in memory for spatial layout: Evidence from scene recognition

“…When people recognize real-world objects, for example, it is known that views providing a canonical perspective of an object are judged more accurately and rapidly than views that provide other perspectives (Newell & Findlay, 1997;Palmer, Rosch, & Chase, 1981; see also Gibson & Peterson, 1994). Moreover, canonical views are easily recognized even after people have been exposed to many noncanonical views (Ashworth & Dror, 2000;Murray, 1999;O'Reilly & Friedman, 2005). If the centered, balanced scene on which the participants trained in Experiments 1 and 2 was analogous to a canonical view of an object, it is possible that training on a noncanonical laterally displaced view would lead to effects different from those found in Experiments 1 and 2.…”

“…Canonical views of objects are generally considered to be those that provide relatively greater information about the spatial structure of the object (Palmer et al, 1981), are more familiar, or are more functional (Blanz, Tarr, & Bülthoff, 1999). Such views are recognized with greater facility than are noncanonical views, even when one is specifically trained on noncanonical views (Ashworth & Dror, 2000;O'Reilly & Friedman, 2005). In the present experiments, however, it is difficult to regard a centered view of a spatial layout as "canonical," at least in the sense that it either provides more information about the layout or is more familiar.…”