title: 3-D constraints on spatially parallel shape perception.
abstract: We report evidence from three sets of experiments dealing with spatially parallel grouping of parts in single objects. A first set of experiments demonstrates that parts can be encoded in a spatially parallel manner in three-dimensional (3-D) objects, while there is a serial selection of parts across objects. A second set of experiments further shows that grouping in 3-D is less affected by eliminating collinearity between the parts of objects than grouping in two dimensions, suggesting that 3-D constraints operate directly on visual grouping. A final pair of experiments demonstrates that rotating the elements in the plane, to make a physically unstable 3-D object, disrupts the benefit found with 3-D stimuli when collinearity is eliminated. The evidence indicates that there is rapid and spatially parallel encoding of 3-D object descriptions in vision.
authors.affiliation: Behavioural Brain Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, England. g.w.humphreys@bham.ac.uk
authors.forename: G W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Humphreys
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Donnelly
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D003867:Depth Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010466:Perceptual Closure; D011601:Psychophysics