ERIC Number: EJ735958
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Apr
Pages: 9
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0096-1523
EISSN: N/A
On the Surprising Salience of Curvature in Grouping by Proximity
Strother, Lars; Kubovy, Michael
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, v32 n2 p226-234 Apr 2006
The authors conducted 3 experiments to explore the roles of curvature, density, and relative proximity in the perceptual organization of ambiguous dot patterns. To this end, they developed a new family of regular dot patterns that tend to be perceptually grouped into parallel contours, dot-sampled structured grids (DSGs). DSGs are similar to the dot lattices used to study grouping by proximity, except that only one of the potential organizations is rectilinear; the others are curvilinear. The authors used the method of M. Kubovy and J. Wagemans (1995) to study grouping by proximity in DSGs. They found that in the competition between the most likely organizations, one rectilinear and the other curvilinear, the latter is more salient. This phenomenon cannot be explained by contemporary accounts of grouping by proximity or contour integration.
Descriptors: Experimental Psychology, Proximity, Visual Perception, Experimental Psychology, Dimensional Preference, Visual Discrimination, Visual Stimuli, Geometric Concepts
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A