How perceived distractor distance influences reference production: Effects of perceptual grouping in 2D and 3D scenes

This study explored two factors that might have an impact on how participants perceive distance between objects in a visual scene: perceptual grouping and presentation mode (2D versus 3D). More specifically, we examined how these factors affect language production, asking if they cause speakers to include a redundant color attribute in their descriptions of objects. We expected speakers to use more redundant color attributes when distractor objects are perceptually close. Our findings revealed effects of perceptual grouping, with speakers indeed using color more often when all objects in a scene were in the same perceptual group as compared to when this was not the case. An effect of presentation mode (whether scenes were presented in 2D or in 3D) was only partially borne out by the data. Implications of our results for computational models of reference production are discussed.

[1]  Emiel Krahmer,et al.  How Distractor Objects Trigger Referential Overspecification: Testing the Effects of Visual Clutter and Distractor Distance , 2016, Cogn. Sci..

[2]  Kristinn R. Thórisson,et al.  Simulated Perceptual Grouping: An Application to Human-Computer Interaction , 2019, Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

[3]  A Yonas,et al.  A comparison of monocular and binocular depth perception in 5- and 7-month-old infants. , 1984, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[4]  Wijnand A. IJsselsteijn,et al.  Viewing experience and naturalness of 3D images , 2005, SPIE Optics East.

[5]  D. Casasanto,et al.  Similarity and proximity: When does close in space mean close in mind? , 2008, Memory & cognition.

[6]  Emiel Krahmer,et al.  Efficient context-sensitive generation of referring expressions , 2002 .

[7]  Robert Dale,et al.  Computational Interpretations of the Gricean Maxims in the Generation of Referring Expressions , 1995, Cogn. Sci..

[8]  Emiel Krahmer,et al.  The impact of bottom-up and top-down saliency cues on reference production , 2013, CogSci.

[9]  Robbert-Jan Beun,et al.  Object reference in a shared domain of conversation , 1998 .

[10]  M. Wertheimer.  Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt. II , 1923 .

[11]  Ashutosh Saxena,et al.  Make3D: Depth Perception from a Single Still Image , 2008, AAAI.

[12]  Max Wertheimer,et al.  Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt , .

[13]  Emiel Krahmer,et al.  Toward a Computational Psycholinguistics of Reference Production , 2012, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[14]  Martijn Goudbeek,et al.  The Effect of Scene Variation on the Redundant Use of Color in Definite Reference , 2013, Cogn. Sci..

[15]  T. Pechmann.  Incremental speech production and referential overspecification , 1989 .

[16]  S. Palmer.  Common region: A new principle of perceptual grouping , 1992, Cognitive Psychology.

[17]  J. Loomis.  Looking down is looking up , 2001, Nature.

[18]  M. Elsner,et al.  Where's Wally: the influence of visual salience on referring expression generation , 2013, Front. Psychol..

[19]  W. Levelt.  Speaking: From Intention to Articulation , 1990 .