Global precedence in visual pattern recognition

Hughes, Heather; Layton, W. Michael; Baird, John C.; Lester, Laurie S.

doi:10.3758/bf03206340

Cited by 89 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…humans (1,2,22,23) and monkeys (4,24) and are in agreement with the theory that global pattern cues dominate local cues. In contrast, during bilateral deactivation of the superficial layers of the SC, the learning of the incongruent pair was significantly slowed relative to the learning rates of control cats.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…concurrent learning ͉ global precedence ͉ feature detection ͉ form discrimination ͉ cat I n the study of visual perception, the theory of global precedence states that global features of a figure are processed before its local features (1,2). It has been suggested that this precedence is not one of prior processing, but of attention to one feature or another (3).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Learning to see the trees before the forest: Reversible deactivation of the superior colliculus during learning of local and global visual features

Lomber

2002

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Previous studies have established that deactivation of the superior colliculus severely retards the normally rapid learning of pattern discriminations in the mature cat. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that the midbrain plays an important role in the learning of simple pattern discriminations and that the contribution of this pathway is to the perception of global, rather than local, features of a figure. To answer this question, pattern discrimination learning was studied in three intact cats and in three experimental cats during bilateral reversible deactivation of the superficial layers of the superior colliculus (SC). The animals concurrently learned to discriminate three pairs of compound visual patterns composed of small (local element) Ts or 7s. Congruent and incongruent stimulus pairs were large (global) Ts vs. 7s comprising the same or different local elements, respectively. The random stimulus pair consisted of randomly scattered local elements (Ts vs. 7s). The animals were trained to respond to the large Ts in the congruent and incongruent pairs and the small Ts in the random pair. In the normal cats, learning of the random pair was much slower than the learning of the congruent and incongruent pairs. This finding demonstrated the theory of global precedence, because the animals learned the global features of the congruent and incongruent pairs much more quickly than the local features of the random pair. In contrast, during bilateral deactivation of the superficial layers of the SC, the learning of the incongruent pair was significantly retarded and took longer to learn than the random pair. Congruent and random pair learning rates were unchanged. The specific deficit in learning the incongruent pair indicates that the learning of global, but not local, elements of the visual pattern is impaired during deactivation of the SC. The unimpaired use of local features permitted the animals to learn the congruent and random pairs at normal rates. Therefore, deactivation of the superficial layers of the SC during pattern discrimination learning reverses the precedence for global visual features that is typical of normal learning. concurrent learning ͉ global precedence ͉ feature detection ͉ form discrimination ͉ cat

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning to see the trees before the forest: Reversible deactivation of the superior colliculus during learning of local and global visual features

Lomber

2002

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…The global precedence effect has been the topic of many studies in the last two decades (e.g., Boer & Keuss, 1982;Hoffman 1980;Hughes, Layton, Baird, & Lester, 1984;Kimchi & Palmer, 1982;Kinchla & Wolfe, 1979;Martin, 1979a;Miller, 1987;Navon, 1977, 1981a, Navon & Norman, 1983Paquet & Merikle 1984Pomerantz, 1983;Ward, 1982). As Ward (1983) proposed some of the controversy surrounding the issue of global precedence originates from using the same vocabulary to refer to different processes.…”

Section: A New Classificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of eccentricity and size in the global precedence effect.

Amirkhiabani¹,

Lovegrove²

1996

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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SOURCES STATEMENT I certify that the thesis entitled The Role o f Eccentricity and Size in the Global PrecedenceEffect, and submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, is the result of my own research, except where otherwise acknowledged, and that this thesis (or any part of the same) has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other university or institution. Navon (1977) purposed that global configurations are processed more quickly than are local components. Kinchla and Wolfe (1979) demonstrated that this global precedence was lost when the global stimuli exceeded 6-9 degrees of visual angle. Navon and Norman (1983) noted that Kinchla and Wolfe confounded size and eccentricity. They attempted to unconfound these two variables and concluded that global precedence was found with both large and small stimuli when eccentricity was not a confound.It is argued that the controversy in the global precedence hypothesis has partially resulted from the fact that the concepts of the global and local and the attributed relationship between these two vary in different experiments and among workers. In the present study a new approach to global-local relationships was introduced. Global-local relationships were classified into four groups: Inclusion, placeholder, dimensional, and featural relationships. Any of these relationships may or may not be accompanied by a semantic relationship between the global and local levels. The Stroop-type interference of the global and local levels refers to some sort of conventional semantic relationship between the levels. Based on an extensive study of the literature it was suggested that the perception of the global and local levels of a compound pattern is dependent on the type of relationship between two levels. The presented study was limited to test the effect of size and eccentricity of the compound pattern on the processing of the global and local levels with inclusion and placeholder relationships.Debate is still very active regarding the global precedence effect. The present study questioned the initial logic behind this hypothesis about the equal recognisability of the global and local levels, an axiom which has been accepted without being tested. This was investigated in a series of experiments by considering the effects of eccentricity and size and their possible interaction on the processing of the two structural levels, using compound patterns of placeholder and inclusion relationships. Furthermore, the possible iii effect of size/eccentricity uncertainty on the temporal order of processing of the global and local levels and patterns of response times were examined across eccentricity. The results showed a global advantage regardless of attentional strategies or experimental presentation conditions when the eccentricity was controlled. The study of Stroop-type interference between the global and local levels indicated a discontinuity in global/local interference with variations in size and eccentricity. It seems that size and eccentricity are the main determina...

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“…Since Navon's (1977) original paper, many researchers have examined the global precedence phenomenon, often using a stimulus of small shapes or letters-the local information-arranged to form a large shape or letter-the global information (e.g., Hughes, Layton, Baird, & Lester, 1984;LaGasse, 1993;Martin, 1979;Miller, 1981;Navon, 1981Navon, , 1991Paquet & Merikle, 1984;Pomerantz, 1983;Robertson, Egly, Lamb, & Kerth, 1993). In these studies, global precedence has been defined in two different ways.…”

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confidence: 99%

Simultaneous encoding of direction at a local and global scale

Watamaniuk

McKee

1998

Perception & Psychophysics

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Human observers can simultaneously encode direction information at two different scales, one local (an individual dot) and one global (the coherent motion of a field of dots distributed over a 10°_ diameter display). We assessed whether encoding global motion would preclude the encoding of a local trajectory component and vice versa. In the present experiments, a large number (100-150) of dots were randomly assigned directions in each frame from a uniform distribution of directions spanning a range of 160°to create global motion in a single direction (Williams & Sekuler, 1984). Amidst these background dots, 1 dot moved in a consistent direction (trajectory) for the duration of the display. The direction of this "trajectory dot" was similar to the mean direction of the distribution of directions detennining the movement of the background dots. Direction discrimination for both the global motion and the trajectory was measured, using the method of constant stimuli, under precued and postcued partial report conditions. A low-or high-frequency 85-msec tone signaled which motion the subject was to judge. In the precue condition, the tone was presented 200 msec before the onset of the stimulus, whereas in the postcue condition, the tone was presented immediately after the offset of the stimulus. Direction discrimination thresholds for both global and local motion in the postcued condition were not significantly different from those obtained in the precued condition. These results suggest that direction information for both global and local motion is encoded simultaneously and that the observer has access to either motion signal after the presentation of a stimulus.As we navigate through our environment, our visual system is bombarded with motion information at many different scales. At the largest scale-the entire visual fielda stationary background will produce an optic flow field (Gibson, 1966) that provides information about the layout ofthe surroundings. At a smaller scale, an individual moving object will trace out a smooth path that is superimposed upon the background motion. The smoothness of the object's path is due to inertia, which restricts a moving object from rapidly changing its direction or speed. How does our visual system deal with information about the background's motion and about the motion ofan individual object on that background? Can we identify the motion ofthe moving object while simultaneously processing the backgound's motion?The present experiments were designed to determine how well the human visual system encodes simultaneously presented background motion and individual element motion by measuring the precision of direction discrimination judgments. In the past, many studies evaluating humans' abilities to process information at different scales This research was supported by AFOSR Grant F49620-95-1-0265. Correspondence should be addressed to S. N. 1. Watarnaniuk, Psychology Department, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435 (e-mail: swatarnaniuk@wright.edu).were couched in terms of gl...

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Global precedence in visual pattern recognition

Cited by 89 publications

References 21 publications

Learning to see the trees before the forest: Reversible deactivation of the superior colliculus during learning of local and global visual features

Learning to see the trees before the forest: Reversible deactivation of the superior colliculus during learning of local and global visual features

Role of eccentricity and size in the global precedence effect.

Simultaneous encoding of direction at a local and global scale

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