Citation

Sanocki T, Schultz S. J. Vis. 2015; 15(12): 355.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology)

DOI

10.1167/15.12.355

PMID

26326043

Abstract

How do observers encode information from a rich, novel scene? A classical idea is that high-level schemata aid in the encoding and retention of schema-consistent information. In the present experiment, we primed a high-level schema, and measured the richness of perception with a full report technique. Observers saw 5 prime pictures of everyday scenes that emphasized either structure (interesting buildings) or people doing activities (sports and games). Observers typed in either brief descriptions or complete perceived details. Then, on critical trials 6 and 7, we presented pictures that contained both structures (but not buildings) and active people (but not sports or games), for 150 ms. The complete-detailed full reports were scored by raters blind to the priming conditions. The results indicate that full reports were rich and accurate (M = 39.9 informative structure or people words per report). Most important, the prime experiences resulted in a change in the reports; there were 15.0% more structure words for structure-primed observers than for people-primed observers. Since the prime-pictures had different objects or events than the critical pictures, the effects can be attributed to high-level schemata, rather than specific object or event priming. The building pictures primed the perception of artistic non-building structures, whereas the sports and games pictures primed the perception of walking and playing people. The results serve to illustrate both the efficiency and the intelligence of rapid scene perception. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.

Language: en