Grouping and detecting vertices in 2-D, 3-D, and quasi-3-D objects.

In 2 experiments, observers (n?=?17) searched for a misaligned vertex in displays depicting 1 or more two-dimensional (2-D), three-dimensional (3-D), and quasi-3-D objects that were drawn with unconnected vertices. Serial search functions were obtained for all 3 conditions, even after much practice. In addition, search among the 2-D objects was more efficient than search among either 3-D or quasi-3-D objects, which did not differ after practice. This finding suggests that differences in depicted dimensionality cannot explain the difference in performance between the 2-D and 3-D conditions, but differences in stimulus complexity can. Further, after practice with the 2-D displays, observers could detect a misaligned vertex as rapidly among 2 objects as they could with 1-object displays. These findings have implications for models of object recognition that assign a critical role to vertices in early vision, as well as the notion that mechanisms underlying preattentive processing may differ from those underlying the automaticity of processing that develops with practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)