Ensemble size judgments account for size constancy
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Ensemble size judgments account for size constancy Jason Haberman 1
&
Sneha Suresh 2
Accepted: 9 September 2020 # The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2020
Abstract The natural environment is full of redundant information that the visual system compresses into an ensemble representation by averaging features of groups of items. Ensemble perception has been shown to operate with remarkable flexibility, efficiently integrating information across a variety of visual domains. In the current set of experiments, we tested whether average size representations reflect the physical size of objects displayed on a screen or perceptual transformations due to size constancy. We induced a perceptual change by presenting sets of triangles with linear perspective cues – lines converging at the horizon. Assuming a constant size, these cues cause individual objects “in the distance” to appear larger than objects without distance cues, due to size constancy heuristics. Observers viewed sets of triangles with and without linear perspective cues and judged whether a subsequently presented test triangle was larger or smaller than the average size of the preceding set. Results revealed ensemble size representations took size constancy into account, reflecting the perceived size of the triangles rather than their absolute size. Interestingly, the amount of bias exhibited was well characterized by the summed bias associated with each of the three triangles presented individually. Other pictorial cues to depth, such as occlusion and height-in-field, did not elicit the same bias when those were the only depth cues available. Overall, our results complement and extend other work showing that average size reflects the perceptual size of individual items in a set. Keywords 3D perception: depth and shape from X . Object recognition . Perceptual organization . Ensemble Perception
Introduction The visual system possesses an extensive array of heuristics to assist in the reconstruction of the natural environment. Among the most impressive and contentious of these is the phenomenon of size constancy (Carlson, 1962; Ross & Plug, 1998), which refers to the consistent perception of an object’s size despite changes in perceived distance and retinal image size. A tiny retinal image could reasonably be perceived as a tiny Significance Ensemble perception is a ubiquitous visual phenomenon. While much research has focused on defining its limitations, this work examines its nature. For the domain of ensemble size, we ask whether it reflects absolute, retinal image size or perceived size after rescaling has occurred? Our work reinforces the notion that ensemble size takes into account size transformations due to depth estimates and is the first demonstration of its kind using pictorial cues to depth. * Jason Haberman [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Rhodes College, 2000 North Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112, USA
2
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
object, but the visual system incorporates perceived distance inf
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