Abstract
Canonical views are different between objects and scenes. Previous research, using a stimuli set that equated all visual features between objects and scenes except for connectedness between the parts, has demonstrated that participants prefer oblique views for objects while they prefer straight-on views for scenes. These preferences are apparent by measuring either participants dwell time while studying different views of the stimuli or the view that participants chose as their favorite. Viewpoint preferences stayed constant across different tasks requiring the use of identical visual information between objects and scenes. The present studies explored whether this preference reflects encoding or retrieval efficiency. Participants either explored oblique or straight-on views (45° or 0°, respectively) of objects or scenes and were tested on an intermediate view between the two types of study views (22.5° or 202.5°), or studied objects or scenes from the intermediate views and were tested on the oblique or straight-on views. In all tasks participants were faster at recognizing oblique views than straight-on views of objects, and were faster at recognizing straight on than oblique views of scenes. These results suggest that people's canonical viewpoint preferences reflect the ability to determine which view is most beneficial for both encoding and recognition even though the stimuli types provide the same visual information, except for connectedness between parts.