The structure of three-dimensional object representations in human vision: evidence from whole-part matching

Leek, E. Charles, Reppa, Irene and Arguin, Martin (2005) The structure of three-dimensional object representations in human vision: evidence from whole-part matching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31 (4), 668–684. (doi:10.1037/0096-1523.31.4.668).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This article examines how the human visual system represents the shapes of 3-dimensional (3D) objects. One long-standing hypothesis is that object shapes are represented in terms of volumetric component parts and their spatial configuration. This hypothesis is examined in 3 experiments using a whole-part matching paradigm in which participants match object parts to whole novel 3D object shapes. Experiments 1 and 2, consistent with volumetric image segmentation, show that whole-part matching is faster for volumetric component parts than for either open or closed nonvolumetric regions of edge contour. However, the results of Experiment 3 show that an equivalent advantage is found for bounded regions of edge contour that correspond to object surfaces. The results are interpreted in terms of a surface-based model of 3D shape representation, which proposes edge-bounded 2-dimensional polygons as basic primitives of surface shape. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

This record has no associated files available for download.