Abstract
In a series of four experiments, observers identified a briefly flashed line segment more accurately when it was part of a drawing that looked unitary and three-dimensional than when the line segment was presented alone. This extends earlier findings of better identification of a line segment when it is part of an apparently unitary, three-dimensional drawing than when it is in a less coherent flat design; and these results demonstrate a visua1 effect analogous to the word-letter effect which uses nonlinguistic materials. Experiment 1 demonstrates the existence of the object-line effect and shows that it does not depend on the presence of a subsequent mask; Experiment 2 shows that the effect holds up with two-altemative forcedchoice presentation; Experiment 3 demonstrates that the effect is not due to bright end points which may occur when the target line appears with a context; and Experiment 4 shows that the effect is as strong when the target line segments occupy widely separated spatial locations as it is when they occupy nearby, potentially confusable locations.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Reference Notes
Klein. R.Visual detection of line segments When the object is not superior. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, 1976.
2. Spoehr, K. Personal communication, 1975.
3. Berbaum, K.The psychological reality of certain computer models for scene parsing, Unpublished manuscript, 1977.
References
Baron, J. The word-superiority effect In W. K. Estes (Ed.).Handbook of learning and cognitive processes. Hillsdale, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum. in press.
Baron, J., &Thurston, I. An analysis of the word-superiority effect,Cognitive Psychology, 1973,4, 207–228.
Berbaum, K. Weisstein, N. &Harrjs, C. A vertex-superiority effect.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society. 1975,6, 418.
Bjork, E. L., &Estes, W. K. Letter identlfication in relation to Iinguistic context and masking conditions.Memory & Cognition. 1973,1, 217–223.
Dunnett, C. W. New tables for multiple comparisons with a control.Biometrics. 1964,20, 482–491.
Egeth, H., &Gilmore, G. Perceptibility of the letters in words and nonwords with complete control for redundancy.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1973,2, 329.
Estes, W. K. Memory. perception, and decision m letter identification. In R. Solso (Ed.).The Loyola sympostum, Hillsdale. N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1975.
Johnston, J. C., &Mcclelland, J. L. Visual factors in word perception.Perception & Psychophysics. 1973,14, 365–370.
Johnston, J. C., &Mcclelland, J. L. Perception of letters in words: Seek not and ye shall find.Science, 1974,184, 1192–1193.
Matthews, M. Facilitation of letter recognition by an annulus in a metacontrast paradigm.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1974,26, 312–323.
Matthews, M. Weisstein, N., &Williams, A. Masking of letter features does not remove the word-superiority effect.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1974,4, 262.
Mcclelland. James L. Perception and masking of wholes and parts,Journal of Expenmental Psychology Human Perception and Performance. in press.
Pomerantz, J. R..Sager, L. C., &Stoever, R. G. Perception of wholes and their component parts: Some configural superiority effects.Journai of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance. 1977,3, 422–435.
Reicher, G. M. Perceptual recognition as a function of meaningfulness of stimulus material.Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1969,81, 275–280.
Schendel, J. D. &Shaw, P. A test of the generality of the word-contest effeet.Percepuon & Psychophysics. 1976,19, 383–393.
Smith, E. E., &Haviland, S. E. Why words are perceived more accurately than nonwords. Inference versus unitization.Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1972,92, 59–64.
Spector, A., &Purcell, D. G. The word superiority effect: A comparison between restricted and unrestricted alternative set,Perception & Psychophysics. 1977,11, 323–328.
Thompson, M. C., &Massaro, D. W. Visual information redundancy in reading.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1973,98, 49–54.
Weisstein, N., &Harrjs, C. S. Visual detection of line segments: An object-superiority effect,Science, 1974,186, 752–755.
Wheeler, D. D. Processes in word recognition.Cognitive Psychology, 1970,1, 59–85.
Williams, A., &Weisstein, N. The time course of object superiority.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1976,8, 200.
Winer, B. J.Statisticsl principles in experimental design, New York. McGraw-Hill, 1971.
Womersley, M.g A contextual effect in feature detection with application of Signal detection methodology.Perception & Psychophysics. 1977,21, 88–92.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported in part by National Eye Institute Grant NIH ROI EY01330 and National Science Foundation Grant BNS 76-02059 to the second author.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Williams, A., Weisstein, N. Line segments are perceived better in a coherent context than alone: An object-line effect in visual perception. Memory & Cognition 6, 85–90 (1978). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197432
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197432