The perceptual and mnemonic effects of ensemble representation on individual size representation.

Atten Percept Psychophys

Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.

Published: November 2024

AI Article Synopsis

  • The study investigates how visual objects influence each other, specifically focusing on the representation of individual objects when surrounded by a group of similar items.
  • It found that individual objects appear smaller or larger based on the size of surrounding objects, demonstrating a "repulsive ensemble bias" influenced by both perceptual encoding and memory retention.
  • Results indicated that this bias was strongest shortly after presentation (0-50 ms) and reduced over time, showing that both immediate perception and memory maintenance play roles in how we perceive individual object sizes in a group context.

Article Abstract

Our visual world consists of multiple objects, necessitating the identification of individual objects. Nevertheless, the representation of visual objects often exerts influence on each other. Even when we selectively attend to a subset of visual objects, the representations of surrounding items are encoded and influence the processing of the attended item(s). However, it remains unclear whether the effect of group ensemble representation on individual item representation occurs at the perceptual encoding phase, during the memory maintenance period, or both. Therefore, the current study conducted visual psychophysics experiments to investigate the contributions of perceptual and mnemonic bias on the observed effect of ensemble representation on individual size representation. Across five experiments, we found a consistent pattern of repulsive ensemble bias, such that the size of an individual target circle was consistently reported to be smaller than it actually was when presented alongside other circles with larger mean size, and vice versa. There was a perceptual component to the bias, but mnemonic factors also influenced its magnitude. Specifically, the repulsion bias was strongest with a short retention period (0-50 ms), then reduced within a second to a weaker magnitude that remained stable for a longer retention period (5,000 ms). Such patterns of results persisted when we facilitated the processing of ensemble representation by increasing the set size (Experiment 1B) or post-cueing the target circle so that attention was distributed across all items (Experiment 2B).

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11652647PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-024-02963-xDOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

ensemble representation
16
representation individual
12
perceptual mnemonic
8
representation
8
individual size
8
size representation
8
representation visual
8
visual objects
8
target circle
8
retention period
8

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!