title: Common region wins the competition between extrinsic grouping cues: Evidence from a task without explicit attention to grouping.
abstract: The competition between perceptual grouping factors is a relatively ignored topic, especially in the case of extrinsic grouping cues (e.g., common region or connectedness). Recent studies have examined the integration of extrinsic cues using tasks that induce selective attention to groups based on different grouping cues. However, this procedure could generate alternative strategies for task performance, which are non-related to the perceptual grouping operations. In the current work, we used an indirect task, i.e. repetition discrimination task, without explicit attention to grouping cues to further examine the rules that govern dominance between competing extrinsic grouping factors. This procedure allowed us to obtain an unbiased measure of the competition between common region and connectedness cues acting within the same display. The results corroborate previous data showing that grouping by common region dominated the perceived organization of the display, even though the phenomenological strength of the grouping cues was equated for each participant by means of a preliminary scaling task. Our results highlight the relevance of using indirect tasks as an essential tool for the systematic study of the integration of extrinsic grouping cues.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psicología Básica 1, Facultad de Psicología. UNED, C/Juan del Rosal 10, 28040, Madrid, Spain. prmontoro@psi.uned.es.
authors.forename: Pedro R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Montoro
authors.affiliation: Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.|Departamento de Psicología Básica I, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Villalba-García
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psicología Básica 1, Facultad de Psicología. UNED, C/Juan del Rosal 10, 28040, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Dolores
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Luna
authors.affiliation: Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.|Departamento de Psicología Básica I, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: José A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Hinojosa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Extrinsic principles; Gestalt; Grouping by common region; Grouping by connectedness; Perceptual grouping