In support of hierarchy in object representations

The descriptive minimum principle states that the preferred interpretation of a pattern is reflected by the simplest representation of that pattern. Such a simplest representation generally has a hierarchical structure. The pattern component represented at the highest hierarchical level is said to constitute the “superstructure” of the pattern, and pattern components represented at lower levels are said to constitute the “subordinate” structure. The primed-matching paradigm has been employed in two experiments to test whether superstructures of three-dimensional objects are perceptually more dominant than subordinate structures. In the first experiment, the test pairs consisted of two-dimensional line drawings of three-dimensional objects; each prime was a two-dimensional face of such an object, corresponding to either the superstructure or the subordinate structure. Two priming conditions were employed. In the “literal” condition, the object face was presented as it appeared in the drawing of the object (physical similarity). In the “frontal” condition, the object face was presented in the frontal-parallel plane (representational similarity). Object matching was found to be facilitated more by priming superstructures than by priming subordinate structures. In the second experiment, the order was reversed: the test pairs were composed of the object faces and the object drawings were taken as primes. Again, there were facilitating effects for both superstructures and subordinate structures, but this time without differentiation between superstructures and subordinate structures.