Abstract
Most previous investigations studied the competition between grouping principles using subjective reports. Recently, Rashal, Yeshurun and Kimchi (2016) used the primed-matching paradigm to investigate the time-course of this competition. In this paradigm, a prime stimulus is followed by a pair of test figures that are either identical to one another or different. Typically, "same" responses to the test-pair are faster and/or more accurate when they are similar to the prime than when they are dissimilar. In that study, the primes depicted one grouping principle, or two principles that led to different organizations (e.g., columns by brightness simmilarity and rows by proximity). Their results showed that at certain points of the time-course both organizations produced similar priming, suggesting that representations of both organizations are constructed, and presumably compete before the final percept is chosen for conscious perception. In the current study, we examined whether the time-course of the competition is affected by grouping strength. To that end, we manipulated the degree of the elements' similarity for each grouping principle in the prime. Priming effects were expected to emerge for the organization that produces stronger priming relative to the other (i.e., the dominant organization). The time-course of the competition was examined by varying prime duration. We found that priming effects for the dominant organization increased as grouping strength increased for that organization. However, priming was also reduced for the dominant organization as grouping strength for the second organization increased. These results further support previous findings of a competition between multiple representations, and provide evidence for grouping strength as a factor in this competition.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2017