Relationship between uniform connectedness and proximity in perceptual grouping.

Palmer and Rock proposed that uniform connectedness (UC) occurs prior to classical Gestalt factors to define the primitive units for visual perception. Han, Humphreys and Chen, however, found that grouping by proximity can take place as quickly as that based on UC in a letter discrimination task. Th...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Han, S, Humphreys, G
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2003
_version_ 1826296897096122368
author Han, S
Humphreys, G
author_facet Han, S
Humphreys, G
author_sort Han, S
collection OXFORD
description Palmer and Rock proposed that uniform connectedness (UC) occurs prior to classical Gestalt factors to define the primitive units for visual perception. Han, Humphreys and Chen, however, found that grouping by proximity can take place as quickly as that based on UC in a letter discrimination task. The present study employed a letter detection task to examine the relationship between UC and proximity grouping in 3 experiments. We showed that reaction times to targets defined by proximity or UC were equally fast when one or two global objects were presented in the visual field. However, as the number of global objects was increased, responses were faster to targets defined by UC than to targets defined by proximity. In addition, the advantage of UC over proximity was not affected by the space between global objects. The results suggest that UC was more effective than proximity in forming perceptual units under multiple object conditions. Possible reasons for this finding are discussed.
first_indexed 2024-03-07T04:23:24Z
format Journal article
id oxford-uuid:cbca7318-cff4-4566-8205-3f2ef864d7cc
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-07T04:23:24Z
publishDate 2003
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:cbca7318-cff4-4566-8205-3f2ef864d7cc2022-03-27T07:17:17ZRelationship between uniform connectedness and proximity in perceptual grouping.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:cbca7318-cff4-4566-8205-3f2ef864d7ccEnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2003Han, SHumphreys, GPalmer and Rock proposed that uniform connectedness (UC) occurs prior to classical Gestalt factors to define the primitive units for visual perception. Han, Humphreys and Chen, however, found that grouping by proximity can take place as quickly as that based on UC in a letter discrimination task. The present study employed a letter detection task to examine the relationship between UC and proximity grouping in 3 experiments. We showed that reaction times to targets defined by proximity or UC were equally fast when one or two global objects were presented in the visual field. However, as the number of global objects was increased, responses were faster to targets defined by UC than to targets defined by proximity. In addition, the advantage of UC over proximity was not affected by the space between global objects. The results suggest that UC was more effective than proximity in forming perceptual units under multiple object conditions. Possible reasons for this finding are discussed.
spellingShingle Han, S
Humphreys, G
Relationship between uniform connectedness and proximity in perceptual grouping.
title Relationship between uniform connectedness and proximity in perceptual grouping.
title_full Relationship between uniform connectedness and proximity in perceptual grouping.
title_fullStr Relationship between uniform connectedness and proximity in perceptual grouping.
title_full_unstemmed Relationship between uniform connectedness and proximity in perceptual grouping.
title_short Relationship between uniform connectedness and proximity in perceptual grouping.
title_sort relationship between uniform connectedness and proximity in perceptual grouping
work_keys_str_mv AT hans relationshipbetweenuniformconnectednessandproximityinperceptualgrouping
AT humphreysg relationshipbetweenuniformconnectednessandproximityinperceptualgrouping