Visual complexity exerts opposing effects on object categorization and identification

Gerlach, Christian; Marques, J. Frederico

doi:10.1080/13506285.2014.915908

Cited by 26 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(78 reference statements)

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“…We find reliable category-effects in the applied tasks; RTs were slower for biological items than for artefacts in object decision (d = .47), but faster for biological entities than for artefacts in superordinate categorization (d = .69). These findings are similar to what has been found in previous studies using these tasks (Gerlach, 2009;Gerlach & Marques, 2014), and prove that they are sensitive to category-effects. Despite the sensitive nature of the tasks, we find little evidence of gender differences in the processing of the examined categories.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

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Gender differences in category-specificity do not reflect innate dispositions

Gerlach

Gainotti

2016

Cortex

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It is well established that certain categories of objects are processed more efficiently than others in specific tasks; a phenomenon known as category-specificity in perceptual and conceptual processing. In the last two decades there have also been several reports of gender differences in category-specificity. In the present experiments we test the proposition that such gender differences have an evolutionary origin. If they do, we would expect them to emerge even when the population tested comprises young individuals raised in a gender-equality oriented society. Contrary to this expectation we find no evidence of gender differences in category-specificity in a relatively large sample (N = 366) drawn from such a population; and this despite the fact that both tasks applied (object decision and superordinate categorization) gave rise to reliable category-effects. We suggest that a plausible account of this discrepancy is that previous reports of gender differences may have reflected differences in familiarity originating from socially-based gender roles.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Difficult object decision and superordinate categorization (Gerlach, 2009;Gerlach & Marques, 2014). Should we fail to observe category-specific gender differences in these tasks, we will consider it unlikely that previous reports of gender differences reflect innate dispositions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender differences in category-specificity do not reflect innate dispositions

Gerlach

Gainotti

2016

Cortex

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“…bottles, headphones) might have actually made the search process easier, whereas the relative homogeneity of characters in the low-complexity displays might have made it harder than intended. This explanation is also in line with the results of a study in which participants saw images of objects on which they performed both a categorisation task, requiring less differentiation of the objects, and an object decision task which required more differentiation of the objects (Gerlach & Marques, 2014). For the object decision task, visual complexity of the object images resulted in slower response times.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Effects of visual complexity and ambiguity of verbal instructions on target identification

Marlen

Wermeskerken

Gog

2018

Journal of Cognitive Psychology

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Research has shown that visual complexity and the ambiguity of verbal information affect the speed and accuracy of locating targets during visual search. The higher the visual complexity and description ambiguity, the slower and poorer the target identification performance. Because these factors are seldom studied in combination (even though they regularly co-occur), it is unclear whether they would interact. Therefore, in two experiments, participants viewed images that displayed cartoon-like characters and had to correctly identify a character from a verbal description under conditions of low/ high visual complexity and low/high description ambiguity (manipulated withinsubjects). Results revealed that high ambiguity descriptions resulted in lower accuracy and slower response times. However, our manipulation of visual complexity did not affect performance or response times either in itself or in interaction with verbal ambiguity. Findings are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications, for instance, for multimedia learning.

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“…These hypotheses are then used in a top-down manner to augment the buildup of a more detailed description of the stimulus (i.e. shape configuration), which again serves as input for a more specific match with VLTM representations [38,39,44]. The greater the demand placed on perceptual differentiation, the more loops comprising VLTM access !…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delayed processing of global shape information in developmental prosopagnosia

Gerlach¹,

Klargaard²,

Petersen³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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There is accumulating evidence suggesting that a central deficit in developmental prosopagnosia (DP), a disorder characterized by profound and lifelong difficulties with face recognition, concerns impaired holistic processing. Some of this evidence comes from studies using Navon's paradigm where individuals with DP show a greater local or reduced global bias compared with controls. However, it has not been established what gives rise to this altered processing bias. Is it a reduced global precedence effect, changes in susceptibility to interference effects or both? By analyzing the performance of 10 individuals with DP in Navon's paradigm we find evidence of a reduced global precedence effect: The DPs are slower than controls to process global but not local shape information. Importantly, and in contrast to previous studies, we demonstrate that the DPs perform normally in a comprehensive test of visual attention, showing normal: visual short-term memory capacity, speed of visual processing, efficiency of top-down selectivity, and allocation of attentional resources. Hence, we conclude that the reduced global precedence effect reflects a perceptual rather than an attentional deficit. We further show that this reduced global precedence effect correlates both with the DPs' face recognition abilities, as well as their ability to recognize degraded (non-face) objects. We suggest that the DPs' impaired performance in all three domains (Navon, face and object recognition) may be related to the same dysfunction; delayed derivation of global relative to local shape information.

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Visual complexity exerts opposing effects on object categorization and identification

Cited by 26 publications

References 43 publications

Gender differences in category-specificity do not reflect innate dispositions

Gender differences in category-specificity do not reflect innate dispositions

Effects of visual complexity and ambiguity of verbal instructions on target identification

Delayed processing of global shape information in developmental prosopagnosia

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