Perception of wholes and of their component parts: Some configural superiority effects.

Pomerantz, James R.; Sager, Lawrence C.; Stoever, Robert J.

doi:10.1037/0096-1523.3.3.422

Cited by 341 publications

(401 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(34 reference statements)

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“…2B and 3 (C ) fMRI activation patterns of the fourth set of fMRI experiments using high-resolution scans for the grouped topological transitions compared with the grouped local shape transitions (n = 36, P < 0.002 FDR-corrected, size >40 voxels). § An important concern in the study of topological perception is to differentiate visibility from discriminability (19). Because our visual resolution is not perfect, arbitrary impoverishment of visual conditions, as in the reduction of visual angles of stimuli (e.g., of holes), will make the stimuli difficult to see.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Topological change disturbs object continuity in attentive tracking

Zhou¹,

Luo²,

Zhou³

et al. 2010

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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The question of what is a perceptual object is one of the most central and also controversial issues in cognitive science. According to the topological approach to perceptual organization, the core intuitive notion of an object-the holistic identity preserved over shapechanging transformations-may be characterized precisely as topological invariance. Here we show that, across a series of multipleobject tracking tasks, performance was not disrupted when the moving items underwent massive featural changes. However, performance was significantly impaired when the items changed their topological properties of holes, demonstrating that topological invariance constrains what counts as an object in the first place. Consistent with previous findings, fMRI studies indicated that the anterior temporal lobe may be involved in the formation of object representation defined by topological constraints.W hat is a perceptual object? This question has become one of the most central and also controversial issues in many areas of the cognitive sciences (1-13). After decades of research, we still do not yet know exactly what counts as an object in the first place. In natural language and in everyday life, objects can be almost anything (e.g., from a drop of water, to a bird, to a car). It is a major challenge to define precisely, beyond commonsense labeling, what constitutes an object, or, in other words, how we abstract from every variety of objects the basic constraint on objecthood applied to all objects by definition.We propose that the core intuitive notion of an object is its holistic identity preserved over shape-changing transformations (14). This identity can be characterized precisely as topological invariance † , and the extraction of topological properties serves as the starting point for the formation of an object representation (14). Consider a flying bird. The actual shape of the bird always is subject to change because of its motion (which may be nonrigid) or because of changes of illumination. Nonetheless, the phenomenal impression will be that, regardless of the changes in its featural properties (e.g., location, orientation, size, and shape), the bird retains its identity as a single connected entity (an object) over such deformations. Here the invariant of connectivity is precisely one of the topological properties. (Topology sometimes is referred to as "rubber-sheet geometry." The topological transformation can be imagined as rubber-sheet deformations such as bending, twisting, stretching, and shrinking but disallowing tearing apart or gluing together parts. The main topics of interest in topology are the properties that remain unchanged by such continuous deformations. In this kind of rubber-sheet distortion, the number of holes remains invariant and hence is a topological property.)A key but counterintuitive prediction of this topological account of perceptual objects is that the topological change of a figure (e.g., the sudden appearance of a hole in a solid figure) should disturb its object continuity. A to...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Topological change disturbs object continuity in attentive tracking

Zhou¹,

Luo²,

Zhou³

et al. 2010

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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“…Evidence for such global-to-local processing has been suggested in several perceptual and cognitive tasks (e.g. Navon, 1977;Palmer, 1980;Pomerantz, Sager, & Stover, 1977;Sanocki, 2001;Weisstein & Harris, 1974).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Switching between environmental representations in memory

Brockmole

Wang

2002

Cognition

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In everyday life we accomplish tasks that require the storage and access of mental representations of different environments that we are not currently perceiving. Past research has suggested that environments are encoded by a series of independent representations that are organized in memory. Three experiments tested this idea further by asking whether multiple representations of environments can be accessed simultaneously. Using a cued task-set switching paradigm, subjects judged spatial relationships between target locations in two familiar environments. Response times were longer when successive trials probed different environments, an effect not due to switching between semantic categories or semantic priming, suggesting that representations of environments are accessed sequentially. Implications for various hypotheses concerning the properties of environmental representations are discussed. q

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“…In this kind of rubber sheet distortion (smooth shape deformations), connectivity remains invariant and hence, is a topological property. This topological analysis led us to systematically manipulate the topological invariant of connectivity in configural processing (14)(15)(16) to measure its effect on numerosity judgments in the above experiments.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Topology-defined units in numerosity perception

Zhou

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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What is a number? The number sense hypothesis suggests that numerosity is "a primary visual property" like color, contrast, or orientation. However, exactly what attribute of a stimulus is the primary visual property and determines numbers in the number sense? To verify the invariant nature of numerosity perception, we manipulated the numbers of items connected/enclosed in arbitrary and irregular forms while controlling for low-level features (e.g., orientation, color, and size). Subjects performed discrimination, estimation, and equality judgment tasks in a wide range of presentation durations and across small and large numbers. Results consistently show that connecting/ enclosing items led to robust numerosity underestimation, with the extent of underestimation increasing monotonically with the number of connected/enclosed items. In contrast, grouping based on color similarity had no effect on numerosity judgment. We propose that numbers or the primitive units counted in numerosity perception are influenced by topological invariants, such as connectivity and the inside/outside relationship. Beyond the behavioral measures, neural tuning curves to numerosity in the intraparietal sulcus were obtained using functional MRI adaptation, and the tuning curves showed that numbers represented in the intraparietal sulcus were strongly influenced by topology.W hat is a number? The answer to this age-old and fundamental question of philosophy has increasingly benefited from recent scientific investigation using psychology and neuroscience. The number sense hypothesis (1, 2) suggests that a number is "a basic property of the environment" (3) and particularly, because of its remarkable adaptation effect, "a primary visual property" (2), like color, contrast, or orientation (2-8). However, exactly what attribute in the environment is the primary property and determines numbers in the number sense, or more concretely, what is counted in numerosity perception? Consider the invariant nature of numerosity perception. It is self-evident that numerosity is invariant to specific features (e.g., orientation, size, shape, and color) of individual items to be counted. In other words, the primitive units to be counted must be invariant with variation in form dimensions and other visual features (2, 3, 7, 9-11). Then, the critical question becomes how to define precisely such abstract and invariant attributes. ResultsGeneralizing Connection to a Topological Invariant: Connectivity. We designed arbitrary and irregular shapes of connecting line segments (Fig. 1A, Upper) to test the invariant effect of connection on numerosity judgement independent of the concrete forms or manners of connection (12, 13). Three conditions of connection were constructed: zero, one, and two connected pairs of dots in the test patterns (Fig. 1A). A typical numerosity discrimination task was adopted, in which two visual patterns of dots were briefly presented on opposite sides of fixation (one serving as a reference and the other one serving as a test), and subj...

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Perception of wholes and of their component parts: Some configural superiority effects.

Cited by 341 publications

References 25 publications

Topological change disturbs object continuity in attentive tracking

Topological change disturbs object continuity in attentive tracking

Switching between environmental representations in memory

Topology-defined units in numerosity perception

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