Abstract
Purpose: There are two main views on how we perceive an occluded form as a whole object. These views are the local and the global views on amodal completion. Usually the tension between these approaches is tested by using occluded regular forms. This study took a step further by investigating more natural cases of occlusion using quasi-regular forms in a primed-matching experiment. Methods: In the primed matching paradigm a prime is presented before the participants have to make a judgement on the similarity of two forms, where primes congruent with the test pairs speed up the decision. We showed participants an occluded form as a prime (with a prime duration of 500ms), which should facilitate the response on the test pairs that are congruent with the completed form (either global or local) of the occlusion prime. To compare the results of the occlusion primes to the completed primes, we also used globally and locally completed forms as primes. Results: Occlusion primes brought about the same results as global primes, but not as local primes. That is, they both sped up responses for the global test pairs. Thus, the completion of occluded forms seems to be dominated by global influences. Conclusions: Global influences on amodal occlusion are apparent even with quasi-regular forms. This supports the notion that the global way of completing an occluded object is a robust finding.