Priming Spatial Layout of Scenes

Abstract

Observers responded to full-color images of scenes by indicating which of two critical objects was closer in the pictorial space. These target images were preceded by prime images of the same scene sans critical objects, or by control primes or different-scene primes. Reaction times were faster following same-scene primes than following the various control and different-scene primes. Same-scene facilitation was obtained with color primes, line-drawing primes, and primes with shifted views. The effect occurred with natural scenes having gist and simple artificial scenes having little or no gist. The results indicate that prime-induced representations influence the perception of spatial layout in pictures.

The role of higher order image statistics in masking scene gist recognition

“…Conversely, the categories that were the least recognizable based on homogeneous patterns were farms, streets, and markets. Thus, recognizing these latter categories may depend more on inhomogeneous configuration information (i.e., layout- Sanocki, 2003;Sanocki & Epstein, 1997;Schyns & Oliva, 1994). However, this hypothesis must be tested in further research because, to our knowledge, there is currently no standard metric of image homogeneity.…”

Diagnostic Colors Mediate Scene Recognition

“…To the extent that a scene comprises several colored objects, its recognition speed could also benefit from colors when these are diagnostic of the objects themselves. However, we already pointed out that scenes can also be identified from scene-specific cues, not from the identity of their objects (Biederman, 1981;Henderson, 1992;Intraub, 1997;Sanocki & Epstein, 1997;Schyns & Oliva, 1994). Hence, a simple generalization from object to scene colors might be audacious.…”

“…The notion of a scene context, scene ''gist,'' or scene spatial layout, however, remains to be precisely defined (Rensink, 2000). In fact, it is only recently that its role in the recognition of complex pictures has been acknowledged (Epstein & Kanwisher, 1998;Kersten, 1997;Schyns & Oliva, 1994;Sanocki & Epstein, 1997). One goal of this study was to further specify the information content of the scene gist and to demonstrate its sufficiency for scene categorization.…”

“…Remember that in Experiment 3, natural scenes (color-diagnostic and color-nondiagnostic) were both recognized from coarse colored information. Sanocki and Epstein (1997) suggested that the spatial layout was a representation including information about the ground plane (its extent and location), the positions of component objects and surfaces, and the distance relations within the scene. It appears that organization of colored blobs on a coarse scale represents some of this information.…”

An ecological approach to cognitive (im)penetrability

“…Localization is important and clear facilitory effects of scenic context on object localization occur (Sanocki & Epstein 1997). Observers also need to know if objects are consistent with their general expectations within a scene -such object-scene relations are processed very quickly (e.g., Biederman 1981).…”