Straight to the point: how people encode linear discontinuations

Spatial discontinuations, as those found in cities and buildings, are everyday events. But, how do we encode and classify such misalignments? This is the topic of this paper. Twenty participants were asked to classify a total of 51 icons showing an upward-moving line being misaligned to the right, l...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rodrigo I. Mora, Alejandro Lobos, Agustín Ibáñez
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidade Federal Fluminense 2012-12-01
Series:Fractal: Revista de Psicologia
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1984-02922012000300005&lng=en&tlng=en
Description
Summary:Spatial discontinuations, as those found in cities and buildings, are everyday events. But, how do we encode and classify such misalignments? This is the topic of this paper. Twenty participants were asked to classify a total of 51 icons showing an upward-moving line being misaligned to the right, left and straight down. The results show that subjects were very sensitive to slight discontinuations occurring to vertical lines and that there was not exact symmetry between the left and right axis, meaning that the pieces slightly misaligned to the left were encoded differently than those misaligned to the right
ISSN:1984-0292