Abstract
Subjective contours were compared with objective contours in their ability to facilitate performance in speeded tasks that required judging the position of a dot or the slope of a line segment relative to the contour. Subjective contours were found to reduce both reaction times and error rates for dot localization but not for the more difficult slope discrimination task. These results add to the growing body of evidence suggesting that subjective contours have functional properties similar to those of objective contours.
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This research was supported in part by an Institutional Funds Award from SUNY at Buffalo’s Biomedical Research Support Grant.
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Pomerantz, J.R., Goldberg, D.M., Golder, P.S. et al. Subjective contours can facilitate performance in a reaction-time task. Perception & Psychophysics 29, 605–611 (1981). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207379
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207379