'Breaking' position-invariant object recognition.
While it is often assumed that objects can be recognized irrespective of where they fall on the retina, little is known about the mechanisms underlying this ability. By exposing human subjects to an altered world where some objects systematically changed identity during the transient blindness that accompanies eye movements, we induced predictable object confusions across retinal positions, effectively 'breaking' position invariance. Thus, position invariance is not a rigid property of vision but is constantly adapting to the statistics of the environment.
Cox
David D
DD
McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Meier
Philip
P
Oertelt
Nadja
N
DiCarlo
James J
JJ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012153:Retention, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*