PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article Visual Recognition As Soon as You Know It Is There, You Know What It Is

What is the sequence of processing steps involved in visual object recognition? We varied the exposure duration of natural images and measured subjects' performance on three different tasks, each designed to tap a different candidate component process of object recognition. For each exposure duration, accuracy was lower and reaction time longer on a within-category identification task (e.g., distinguishing pigeons from other birds) than on a perceptual categorization task (e.g., birds vs. cars). However, strikingly, at each exposure duration, subjects performed just as quickly and accurately on the categorization task as they did on a task requiring only object detection: By the time subjects knew an image contained an object at all, they already knew its category. These findings place powerful constraints on theories of object recognition.

[1]  D. M. Green,et al.  Signal detection theory and psychophysics , 1966 .

[2]  Daniel G Bobrow,et al.  On data-limited and resource-limited processes , 1975, Cognitive Psychology.

[3]  Wayne D. Gray,et al.  Basic objects in natural categories , 1976, Cognitive Psychology.

[4]  Eleanor Rosch,et al.  Principles of Categorization , 1978 .

[5]  Stephen Wallace,et al.  Figure and Ground , 1982 .

[6]  Stephen M. Kosslyn,et al.  Pictures and names: Making the connection , 1984, Cognitive Psychology.

[7]  N. Graham.  Visual Pattern Analyzers , 1989 .

[8]  B. Gibson,et al.  Shape Recognition Inputs To Figure-Ground Organization in Three-Dimensional Displays , 1993, Cognitive Psychology.

[9]  B. Gibson,et al.  Must Figure-Ground Organization Precede Object Recognition? An Assumption in Peril , 1994 .

[10]  G Kovács,et al.  Cortical correlate of pattern backward masking. , 1995, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[11]  Shinsuke Shimojo,et al.  Visual surface representation: a critical link between lower-level and higher level vision , 1995 .

[12]  Jon Driver,et al.  Edge-Assignment and Figure–Ground Segmentation in Short-Term Visual Matching , 1996, Cognitive Psychology.

[13]  Denis Fize,et al.  Speed of processing in the human visual system , 1996, Nature.

[14]  D H Brainard,et al.  The Psychophysics Toolbox. , 1997, Spatial vision.

[15]  M. Farah,et al.  Is visual image segmentation a bottom-up or an interactive process? , 1997, Perception & psychophysics.

[16]  S. Sternberg.  Discovering mental processing stages: The method of additive factors. , 1998 .

[17]  R. O’Reilly,et al.  Figure-ground organization and object recognition processes: an interactive account. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[18]  Kenji Kawano,et al.  Global and fine information coded by single neurons in the temporal visual cortex , 1999, Nature.

[19]  Mary A. Peterson,et al.  What's in a stage name ? Comment on Vecera and O'Reilly (1998) , 1999 .

[20]  K. Grill-Spector,et al.  The dynamics of object-selective activation correlate with recognition performance in humans , 2000, Nature Neuroscience.

[21]  B. Breitmeyer,et al.  Recent models and findings in visual backward masking: A comparison, review, and update , 2000, Perception & psychophysics.

[22]  S. Sternberg,et al.  Separate modifiability, mental modules, and the use of pure and composite measures to reveal them. , 2001, Acta psychologica.

[23]  J. Tanaka.  The entry point of face recognition: evidence for face expertise. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[24]  M. Peterson,et al.  On what is bound in figures and grounds , 2001 .

[25]  H. Tamura,et al.  Visual response properties of cells in the ventral and dorsal parts of the macaque inferotemporal cortex. , 2001, Cerebral cortex.

[26]  A. Ishai,et al.  Distributed and Overlapping Representations of Faces and Objects in Ventral Temporal Cortex , 2001, Science.

[27]  P. Fldik,et al.  The Speed of Sight , 2001, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[28]  S. Hochstein,et al.  View from the Top Hierarchies and Reverse Hierarchies in the Visual System , 2002, Neuron.

[29]  Shimon Ullman,et al.  Class-Specific, Top-Down Segmentation , 2002, ECCV.

[30]  N. Kanwisher,et al.  Stages of processing in face perception: an MEG study , 2002, Nature Neuroscience.

[31]  Mary A Peterson,et al.  Implicit memory for novel figure-ground displays includes a history of cross-border competition. , 2003, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[32]  Eric Halgren,et al.  Cortical activation to illusory shapes as measured with magnetoencephalography , 2003, NeuroImage.

[33]  Kalanit Grill-Spector,et al.  The functional organization of the ventral visual pathway and its relationship to object recognition , 2003 .

[34]  N. Kanwisher,et al.  The fusiform face area subserves face perception, not generic within-category identification , 2004, Nature Neuroscience.

[35]  Mary A Peterson,et al.  Overlapping Partial Configurations in Object Memory: An Alternative Solution to Classic Problems in Perception and Recognition , 2006 .