title: Shape completion time depends on the size of the occluded region.
abstract: Observers made speeded discriminations of whole, occluded, and mosaic shapes. Shape matching times increased with the amount of occluded shape (Experiment 1), as did the time to merely discriminate 2 shapes (Experiments 2-4). By contrast, the time to judge the shape of the visible portion decreased with larger occluded regions (Experiments 5-7). Experiments 3 and 6 used motion parallax to show that different perceptual operations are involved in discriminating occluded versus mosaic shapes. Experiments 4 and 7 showed that shape completion was unaffected by spatial attention. Results suggest that shape completion is a rapid and obligatory aspect of perception. However, they also show that the time course of completion varies with the size of the hidden region.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
authors.forename: D I
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Shore
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Enns
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009038:Motion; D011930:Reaction Time; D012858:Size Perception