Chapter 5: Perceiving Objects

Overview of Questions
Why do some perceptual psychologists say
the whole differs from the sum of its parts?
How do rules of thumb help us in arriving at
a perception of the environment?

How do we distinguish objects from their

background?
Why are even the most sophisticated
computers unable to match a persons ability
to perceive objects?

The Challenge of Object Perception

The stimulus on the receptors is ambiguous

Inverse projection problem: an image on

the retina can be caused by an infinite
number of objects
Objects can be hidden or blurred
Occlusions are common in the
environment

Inverse projection problem.

The Challenge of Object Perception continued

Objects look different from different
viewpoints
Viewpoint invariance: the ability to
recognize an object regardless of the
viewpoint
The reasons for changes in lightness and
darkness in the environment can be unclear

The Structuralist Approach

Approach established by Wundt (late
1800s)
States that perceptions are
created by combining elements
called sensations

Structuralism could not explain

apparent movement
Stimulated the founding of Gestalt
psychology in the 1920s by
Wertheimer, Koffka, and Kohler

 Structuralist
Approach

Gestalt Psychology
Wertheimer, Koffka, and Kohler (1912)
Perceptions are often greater (or at least
different) than the sum of the sensations
Structuralism: Purely Bottom-Up processing
Many perceptions undermine Structuralism

The Gestalt Approach

The whole differs from the sum of its parts

Perception is not built up from sensations

but is a result of perceptual organization
Principles of perceptual organization

Pragnanz - every stimulus is seen as

simply as possible
Similarity - similar things are grouped
together

Pragnanz

Similarity

Principles of Perceptual Organization continued

Good continuation - connected points
resulting in straight or smooth curves belong
together
Lines are seen as following the smoothest
path
Proximity - things that are near to each other
are grouped together
Common fate - things moving in same
direction are grouped together

Good Continuation

(a) Nearness and (b) Nearness competing with

Similarity.

Gestalt Laws of Perceptual

Organization
Common Fate
things that move
together appear to
be grouped
together

Principles of Perceptual Organization continued

Meaningfulness or familiarity - things form
groups if they appear familiar or meaningful
Common region - elements in the same
region tend to be grouped together

Uniform connectedness - connected region of

visual properties are perceived as single unit
Synchrony - elements occurring at the same
time are seen as belonging together

Figure 5.20 The Forest Has Eyes by Bev Doolittle (1985). Can you find the 13 faces in this picture?

Figure 5.21 Grouping by (a) common region; (b) proximity; (c) connectedness; and (d) synchrony. The
yellow lights blink on and off together.

The Gestalt Approach - continued

Researchers have found neurons that
respond maximally to displays that reflect:
Good continuation
Similarity

Gestalt principles do not make strong enough

predictions to qualify as laws
They are better understood as heuristics best guess rules

Save For Exam 2

Exam 1
Chapters 1-4 and Chapter 5 up to page 103
Monday we will begin with Perceptual
Segregation

Perceptual Segregation
Figure-ground segregation - determining what
part of environment is the figure so that it
stands out from the background
Properties of figure and ground
The figure is more thinglike and more
memorable than ground
The figure is seen in front of the ground
The ground is more uniform and extends
behind figure
The contour separating figure from
ground belongs to the figure

Figure 5.24 A version of Rubins reversible face-vase figure.

Figure 5.25 (a) When the vase is perceived as figure, it is seen in front of a homogeneous dark background.
(b) When the faces are seen as figure, they are seen in front of a homogeneous light background.

Figure-Ground Segregation - continued

Factors that determine which area is figure:

Elements located in the lower part of

displays
Units that are symmetrical

Elements that are small

Units that are oriented vertically
Elements that have meaning

Figure 5.27 (a) Stimuli from Vecera et al. (2002). (b) Percentage of trials on which lower or left areas were
seen as figure.

Figure 5.28 Examples of how displays that are (a) symmetrical; (b) small in size; c) oriented vertically or
horizontally; or meaningful and more likely to be seen as figure.

Figure-Ground Segregation - Neural

Evidence
Recordings from V1 in the monkey cortex show:
Response to area that is figure
No response to area that is ground
This result is important because:
V1 neurons are early in the nervous system
It reveals both a feedforward and
feedbackward in the system
It demonstrates contextual modulation

Responses from V1
Cells (Adapted from
Lamme et al., 1995.)

Modern Research on Object Perception

Modern research emphasizes:

Obtaining measurements over descriptions

Determining the mechanisms responsible
for object perception

This is in contrast to the Gestalt approach,

but builds upon Gestalt principles

Questions Used in Modern Object

Perception Research
Why does the visual system respond best to
specific types of stimuli?
Must a figure be separated from ground
before we can recognize objects?

How do we recognize objects from different

viewpoints?
How does the brain process information
about objects?

Why Does the Visual System Respond Best

to Specific Types of Stimuli?
Regularities in the environment
There is a preponderance of verticals and
horizontals
Oblique effect - people are more
sensitive to these orientations
Occurs due to biology and experience
Gestalt heuristics are reflected in
environmental objects

Figure 5.30 Left:

Photographs like
the ones taken by
the participants in
Coppola et al.s
(1998) experiment
as they walked
around the Duke
University campus.
The results of a
computer analysis
of the orientation in
each type of scene
(indoor campus,
outdoor campus,
and in the forest).

Must a Figure Be Separated from

Ground Before We Can Recognize
Objects?
Research has shown that objects may
be recognized before or during the
separation of figure from ground
Stimuli with a standing woman and
a less meaningful shape were used
The meaningful stimulus (the
woman) was recognized more
often than the other
When the picture of the woman
was turned upside down, this effect
disappeared

How Do We Recognize Objects From

Different Viewpoints?
Structural-description models
3-D objects are based on 3-D volumes called
volumetric features that are combined for a
given shape

Marrs model proposed a sequence of events

using simple geometrical features
The sequence begins with identifying edges
and proceeds to recognition of the object

Structural-description model proposed by David Marr (1982)

Structural-Description Models
continued (Think 3D)
Recognition-by-components
theory by Irving Biederman
Volumetric features are
called geons
Theory proposes there
are 36 geons that
combine to make all 3-D
objects
Geons include cylinders,
rectangular solids, and
pyramids

Structural-Description Models - continued

Properties of geons
View-invariant properties - aspects of the object
that remain visible from different viewpoints
Accidental property - a property that appears
rarely and from certain viewpoints

Discriminability - the ability to distinguish geons

from one another
Principle of componential recovery - the ability to
recognize an object if we can identify its geons

Can you Recover the Components?

Image-Description Models
Ability to identify 3-D objects comes from
stored 2-D viewpoints from different
perspectives
For a familiar object, view invariance
occurs
For a novel object, view invariance does
not occur
This shows that an observer needs to
have the different viewpoints encoded
(stored) before recognition can occur
from all viewpoints

Only one view is stored, so only one is recognized.

(Supports a 2D storage model)

How Does the Brain Process Information

About Objects?
Perceiving an object - sunburst or butterfly?
Experiment by Sheinberg & Logothetis
Monkey was trained to pull a lever for a
sunburst or a butterfly

Binocular rivalry was used - each picture

shown to one eye
Neuron in the IT cortex was monitored

Firing was vigorous for only the butterfly

Identifying an Object: Is That Harrison Ford?

Grill-Spector experiment

Region-of-interest approach: the FFA for

each person was determined first by:
Showing participants faces and nonfaces
Finding the area that responded
preferentially to faces

Grill-Spector Experiment
FFA in each participant was monitored
On each trial, participants were shown either:
A picture of Harrison Fords face
A picture of another persons face
A random texture
All stimuli were shown for 50 ms followed
by a random-pattern mask
Participants were to indicate what they saw
60 pictures of each type were presented

Grill-Spector Experiment - continued

For trials that only included Harrison Fords
face, results showed that FFA activation:
Was greatest when picture was correctly
identified as Ford
Was less when picture was identified as
other object
Showed little response when there was no
identification of a face
Neural processing is associated with both the
presentation of the stimulus and with the
response (recognition) to the stimulus

Activity in FFA is not passively processing info,

It is influenced by attention and the task at hand.

Identifying an Object: Is That a Cat or a Dog?

Freedman et al. experiment
Stimuli preparation - images of a cat and dog
were morphed in 5 steps
Physiological measurement - neurons in
monkeys IT and PF cortex were monitored
IT cortex is a module for form perception what pathway
PF cortex responds when an object is
recognized

Figure 5.42 Delayed-matching-to-sample procedure.

Results of Freedman et al. Experiment

IT neuron responded:
Best when category dog presented during
sample period
Equally to dog and cat during test period
PF neuron responded:
Equally to dog and cat during sample
period
Best when category dog presented during
delay and test period

Perceive and Classify

Decide and Act

Figure 5.43 (a) Response of a monkey IT neuron that responds better to a 100-percent dog stimulus (red
line) than to a 100-percent cat stimulus (blue) during the sample period of the delayed-matching-tosample task. Other combinations of dog and cat fell between these two extremes. (b) Response of PF
neurons to the same stimuli. For this neuron, the response to dog is greater during the delay and text
periods. (From Freedman, D. J. et al., (2003). A comparison of primate prefrontal and inferior temporal
cortices during visual categorization. Journal of Neuroscience, 23, 5235-5246.)

Results of Freedman et al. Experiment continued

IT neurons respond differently to presentation
of cat and dog stimuli
Visual since they respond to perception
PF neurons respond differently to decision
about stimuli
Behavioral since they guide the actual
response in the task

Perceptual Intelligence
Theory of unconscious

inference

Created by Helmholtz (1866/1911) to explain why

stimuli can be interpreted in more than one way
Main Principle - perceptions are result of
unconscious assumptions about the environment
Likelihood principle - objects are perceived based
on what is most likely to have caused the pattern
Your visual system is making decisions about
what you see before you know what you are
looking at!

Figure 5.44 The display in (a) looks like (b) -- a blue rectangle in front of a red rectangle -- but it could be
(c), a blue rectangle and an appropriately positioned 6-sided red figure.

Modern Ideas on Perceptual Intelligence

Palmer experiment
Observers saw a context scene flashed briefly
followed by a target picture
Results showed that:
Targets congruent with the context were
identified 80% of the time
Targets that were incongruent were only
identified 40% of the time

When we are not sure, we decide to see

things that fit the scene and decide not to
see things that are not

Stimuli used in Steven Palmers (1975) experiment. The

scene at the left is presented first, then one of the objects on
the right is presented. The observer is then asked to identify
if one of the objects on the right was presented.

Modern Ideas about Perceptual Intelligence continued

Light-from-above-heuristic
Objects are generally perceived with the
assumption that illumination comes from
above
This is consistent with our experiences
from the environment

Figure 5.47 Why does (a) look like indentations in the sand and (b) look like mounds of sand? See text for
explanation.

Figure 5.46 (a) Some of these discs are perceived as jutting out, and some are perceived as indentations.
(b) Light coming from above will illuminate the top of a shape that is jutting out, and (c) the bottom of an
indentation.