The broad, long- term objective of the proposed research is to investigate and understand the principles of perceptual organization. Ever since the seminal work of Gestalt psychologists in the 1920s, the topic of perceptual organization -- essentially, the nature of part-whole relations among perceptual elements -- has been recognized as central in perceptual theory, but it has been curiously resistant to integration with modern theory. The investigator is reexamining some of the basic assumptions of the Gestalt work and finds them wanting. Specifically, the well-known """"""""laws of grouping"""""""" are widely believed to operate early in vision and to define perceptual units, but the investigator currently believes that both of these propositions are false. Instead, he is finding that grouping is determined by relatively late processes that operate at or after perceptual constancy. He also argues that logic dictates a very different organizational principle -- which he calls uniform connectedness -- to create the perceptual units on which grouping processes operate. In the investigator's view, uniform connectedness provides initial access to the part-whole hierarchy of perceptual organization at what he calls the entry level. He proposes to continue his preliminary studies testing empirical predictions based on these and related theoretical ideas. He plans to use both standard subjective report methods and several novel reaction-time techniques that provide quantitative measures of performance on objectively defined tasks, including the repetition discrimination task and the primed matching task.
| Nelson, Rolf; Thierman, Jessica; Palmer, Stephen E (2009) Shape memory for intrinsic versus accidental holes. Atten Percept Psychophys 71:200-6 |
| Palmer, Stephen; Davis, Janet; Nelson, Rolf et al. (2008) Figure-ground effects on shape memory for objects versus holes. Perception 37:1569-86 |
| Nelson, Rolf A; Palmer, Stephen E (2007) Familiar shapes attract attention in figure-ground displays. Percept Psychophys 69:382-92 |
| Palmer, Stephen E; Beck, Diane M (2007) The repetition discrimination task: an objective method for studying perceptual grouping. Percept Psychophys 69:68-78 |
| Palmer, Stephen E; Brooks, Joseph L; Nelson, Rolf (2003) When does grouping happen? Acta Psychol (Amst) 114:311-30 |
| Palmer, S E; Nelson, R (2000) Late influences on perceptual grouping: illusory figures. Percept Psychophys 62:1321-31 |
| Palmer, S E (1999) Color, consciousness, and the isomorphism constraint. Behav Brain Sci 22:923-43;discussion 944-89 |
| Rock, I; Hall, S; Davis, J (1994) Why do ambiguous figures reverse? Acta Psychol (Amst) 87:33-59 |
| Palmer, S E (1992) Common region: a new principle of perceptual grouping. Cogn Psychol 24:436-47 |
| Rock, I; Nijhawan, R; Palmer, S et al. (1992) Grouping based on phenomenal similarity of achromatic color. Perception 21:779-89 |
