Abstract
Fragments (20%, 35%, and 50%) of pictures of line drawings of common objects, showing 20%, 40%, 60%, or 80% of the distinctive features, were presented to 44 nursery school children and 44 female undergraduates. Results indicated that the total number and the percentage of distinctive fragments played a significant part in the recognition of pictures: distinctive features were most effective when the representations were most impoverished. A trend was obtained between the percentage of distinctive fragments and the total number of fragments. College students needed fewer and less distinctive fragments for recognition than did nursery school children. Results were interpreted using the concepts of abstraction and filtering of distinctive features as proposed by Gibson (1969).
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Portions of this paper were presented at the 58th annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Arlington, VA, April 10, 1987.
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Murray, F.S., Kinnison, E.L. Degree of fragmentations and number of distinctive features in the recognition of pictured objects by children and adults. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 27, 121–124 (1989). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329916
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329916