Grouping

In order for Mooney stimuli to be perceived as faces, perceptual organization processes must group together the appropriate elements and segregate others, shape from shading mechanisms must operate, and representations of faces must be accessed.  At 100 ms post-stimulus onset, we observed an ERP response that distinguishes between those Mooney stimuli that will be perceived as faces and those that will not.  A comparison of upright to inverted stimuli indicates that this differential ERP is not a response to stimulus characteristics (Trujillo & Peterson, SfN, 2004).

 

When the black and white regions are appropriately grouped, this stimulus can be perceived as a woman’s face, oriented to the right.

 

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·       segmentation; shape and object perception

·       object recognition

·       perceptual learning

·       interactions between depth cues and shape cues

·       context effects

·       attention

·       grouping

·       visual binding

·       synaesthesia

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