Abstract
The visual environment contains sets of objects with similar properties, such as the pebbles on the beach or the cars on the highway. Even though the objects in these sets exceed the capacity of attention, people can accurately encode their average properties, such as average size or speed. Studies thus far suggest that statistical summaries are computed effortlessly and automatically, however the exact stage at which statistical processing occurs remains unclear. In this study, we investigated whether averaging occurs before or after objects are perceptually completed. Participants viewed sets of circles that appeared either in front of or partly behind horizontal bars and they were asked to judge their average size. Estimates of the mean were similar for occluded and unoccluded sets, suggesting that objects were amodally completed before they were averaged. The results suggest that statistical processing is informed by complex computations that occur at later stages of visual processing.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015