整体性质和局部性质的关系──大范围优先性

本文介绍了Ｎａｖｏｎ发展的研究整体和局部性质加工的实验模式和他提出的大范围优先性假设，综述了各种影响复合图形加工的因素，分析了大范围优先性研究中矛盾的实验结果和一些基本概念的混淆，并提出从视知觉组织的角度有可能对以往关于大范围优先性的实验结果给出一致的解释．     

知觉整体优先性的研究及其进展

知觉的性质是整体的还是分析的 ?这是心理学家们长期争论不休的问题。本世纪 70年代以来 ,一些认知心理学家提出知觉加工的整体优先性假设 ,强调整体在知觉加工中的优先地位。这一假设激发了大量整体 /局部范例的研究。本文综述了这方面的研究 ,分析了它们的理论假设 ,指出了这方面研究的局限以及替代的探讨。     

封闭性知觉在大范围优先性中的特殊性

本文研究当封闭性作为被试分辨的图形性质时,空间位置不确定性和视野位置对大范围优先性有何影响。实验发现：（１）无论复合刺激呈现在视野的中央或外周．分辨复合刺激的整体性质的反应时（ＲＴ）比分辨局部性质的ＲＴ短,整体性质对分辨局部性质的反应有较强的干扰作用。相反,局部性质对分辨整体性质的反应的影响较小;（２）刺激位置的不确定对大范围优先性没有显著影响;（３）与周边刺激相比,分辨视野中央的复合刺激的ＲＴ较短,但整体性质的ＲＴ优势和对局部性质的干扰作用,不受刺激在视野中的位置的影响。这些实验结果揭示了封闭性知觉在大范围优先性中的特殊性。     

拓扑几何在知觉组织与空间概念形成中的运用

陈霖的拓扑知觉理论运用几何性质解释知觉组织,并强调拓扑性质的优先性——拓扑知觉是其他几何知觉的基础,拓扑知觉先于其他几何知觉发生。皮亚杰的拓扑首位理论认为儿童的空间概念发展顺序为先发展拓扑几何概念,之后再发展射影与欧式几何概念。两大理论都运用拓扑性质来解释心理现象,其研究对象、研究方法存在很大不同,但它们在理论结构上具有高度一致性,对几何学在心理学上的运用有非常重要的启示意义。     

大学生中文独体字知觉加工效应

采用Navon型复合刺激识别任务，考察中文独体字知觉加工的优先效应。结果表明：构形关系上独体字识别有笔画数效应，呈局部优先性，受练习、认知组块影响。定向关系中复合独体字识别呈整体优先性，慢于单体字和复合图的识别，不受笔画、局部性质影响，当局部构件有独立语义或构形意义时，优先效应反转，局部优先性增强。结论认为局部与整体构形优先关系，局部意义负载影响视知觉加工模式，独体字识别由局部和整体加工合力完成。     

儿童整体-局部加工中的负启动现象

采用2种元素疏密程度的复合数字刺激和启动范式,7岁和11岁2个年龄组的小学生分别在注意整体水平和注意局部水平的条件下对探测刺激进行选择反应。结果发现元素疏密程度可以影响知觉优先,而知觉优先与整体局部水平间的负启动之间没有一致的发展关系,说明与负启动有关的注意分配机制可能比知觉组织发展的晚。     

复合字母刺激心理旋转加工中的整体优先效应

采用复合字母材料结合正镜像判断任务,首次揭示了心理旋转加工中的整体优先效应。实验一延长复合字母材料的呈现时间,检验心理旋转实验常用的正/镜像判断任务中的视知觉整体优先效应;实验二将实验一的复合字母材料旋转一定角度,考察心理旋转加工中的整体优先效应。结果发现：（1）延长复合字母呈现时间后的字母正镜像判断任务中,被试判断大字母和判断小字母的时间没有显著差异,并且大小字母是否一致对大字母判断和小字母判断的影响无显著差异;（2）在排除了视知觉的整体优先效应存在的情况下,发现心理旋转加工中存在明显的整体优先效应,大字母（整体）旋转条件下的反应时显著短于小字母（局部）旋转条件下的反应时;（3）旋转角度一致性对大字母旋转和小字母旋转条件下的反应时均无显著影响,表明心理旋转的整体优先效应模式可能有别于视知觉加工的整体优先效应模式     

复合运动刺激视觉追踪的初步研究

本实验采用多目标追踪和复合刺激研究范式,将注意追踪和知觉的整体优先性两个研究领域中存在的知觉组织规律相结合,对单一和多个复合刺激进行注意追踪研究.结果表明:在单一或多个复合刺激追踪过程中,同样遵循静态知觉组织原则;不同知觉组织形式对知觉加工有不同的影响,突出的颜色变化可以促进知觉组织加工.     

非注意状态下拓扑性质优先加工的电生理学证据

采用ERP技术并运用跨通路延迟反应范式来探讨拓扑性质知觉理论在非注意状态下是否成立,发现存在视觉MMN且视觉系统在非注意状态下对拓扑性质的加工比颜色加工更早,表明与局部属性(颜色)相比,拓扑性质在无意识中优先得到加工,拓扑性质知觉理论在非注意状态下是成立的。     

蒙、汉大学生的自我构念对知觉加工的影响

首先考察蒙古族和汉族大学生的自我构念特点,并在文化启动下探查自我构念启动对知觉加工的影响。研究发现:(1)内蒙古蒙古族大学生和汉族大学的自我构念表现为互依型倾向,更倾向整体优势知觉加工,蒙古国古大学生表现出独立型倾向,更倾向于局部优势知觉加工。(2)文化启动条件下,自我构念的即时变化影响知觉的加工,独立性自我构念启动下显示出局部加工优先,互依自我构念启动下显示出整体加工优先。该结果提示,不同文化语景的内蒙古和蒙古国的蒙古族个体的自我构念有着差别,文化的嵌入性可促使个体获得主流文化的自我构念,并对知觉过程有影响作用。     

Do attention and decision follow perception Comment on Miller

In response to Miller's discussion of global precedence, I argue that (a)although perceptual precedence is not the only explanation for asymmetric interference, in some cases it is the most reasonable one; (b) since global precedence does not entail that local and global information cannot interact in their effects on responses, the finding that they do is not incompatible with global precedence; (c) it is dubious that attention or decision are applied just to the resultant of perception rather than determining it or constituting part of it. However, I share some of Miller's doubts about the unique contribution of asymmetric interference data in deciding the issue of global precedence.     

Processing style and person recognition: Exploring the face inversion effect

It has frequently been reported that recognition performance is impaired when faces are presented in an inverted rather than upright orientation, a phenomenon termed the face inversion effect (FIE). Extending previous work on this topic, the current investigation explored whether individual differences in global precedence—the propensity to process nonfacial stimuli in a configural manner—impacts memory for faces. Based on performance on the Navon letter-classification task, two experimental groups were created that differed in relative global precedence (i.e., strong global precedence [SGP] and weak global precedence [WGP]). In a subsequent face-recognition task, results revealed that while both groups demonstrated a reliable FIE, this effect was attenuated among participants displaying WGP. These findings suggest that individual differences in general processing style modulate face recognition.     

The effects of precedence on Navon-induced processing bias in face recognition

Macrae and Lewis (2002) showed that repeated reporting of the global dimension of Navon stimuli improved performance in a subsequent face identification task, whilst reporting the features of the Navon stimuli impaired performance. Using a face composite task, which is assumed to require featural processing, Weston and Perfect (2005) showed the complementary pattern: Featural responding to Navon letters speeded performance. However, both studies used Navon stimuli with global precedence, in which the overall configuration is easier to report than the features. Here we replicate the two studies above, whilst manipulating the precedence (global or featural) of the letter stimuli in the orientation task. Both studies replicated the previously reported findings with global precedence stimuli, but showed the reverse pattern with local precedence stimuli. These data raise important questions as to what is transferred between the Navon orientation task and the face-processing tasks that follow.     

Global-feature classification can be acquired more rapidly than local-feature classification in both humans and pigeons

When humans process visual stimuli, global information often takes precedence over local information. In contrast, some recent studies have pointed to a local precedence effect in both pigeons and nonhuman primates. In the experiment reported here, we compared the speed of acquisition of two different categorizations of the same four geometric figures. One categorization was on the basis of a local feature, the other on the basis of a readily apparent global feature. For both humans and pigeons, the global-feature categorization was acquired more rapidly. This result reinforces the conclusion that local information does not always take precedence over global information in nonhuman animals.     

The forest revisited: More on global precedence

Summary Several issues pertaining to the notion of global precedence, its testing, and its ecological validity are discussed. Global precedence is presented as a claim that, other things being equal, global structure is available in the percept earlier than local features are. It does not state that local processing starts only after global processing is terminated. Since global precedence is a hypothesis about temporal development of percepts, a natural way to test it is to limit exposure duration. Global precedence predicts that local features will be more sensitive to stimulus duration than global ones.An experiment is reported in which subjects were presented with 150 ms exposures of large letters made up of small ones, and had to discriminate either just the large letters or just the small ones. In addition, they had to respond to the presence of a concurrent tone. Local letters were responded to more slowly than global ones, and were associated with more tone errors. The variation of the global level as well as the consistency between the identities of the levels affected the latency to the local letter, but not vice versa. A single small-letter control-condition was used to rule out an explanation in terms of relative size. The effects, albeit weaker than some previous results, are compatible with the hypothesis tested.The results of this experiment are interpreted in the context of an extensive discussion of findings in the paradigm and the generality of the phenomenon assumed to underly them. Possible mechanisms which may mediate global precedence are evaluated. Among them are relative size, lateral masking, diffuse attention, and spatial uncertainty. The magnitude, or even the presence, of global precedence depends on some factors, most prominent of which are visual angle and retinal position. Ecological considerations suggest that proximal sizes and eccentricities which favor global features may be very frequent. Some further subtleties of, as well as problems with, the logic of compound letters are discussed.     

Gobal-local precedence in picture processing

Summary Previous investigations of the global precedence hypothesis (Navon, 1977) have utilized compound letter stimuli. In these stimuli there is no predictive relationship between the global and local levels. Pictorial stimuli, however, contain mutually predictable global and local levels. This study investigated the global precedence hypothesis with pictorial stimuli using a Stroop-like interference task similar to that used by Navon. Subjects were required to respond either to the global (e.g., beach or farm) or local (e.g., boat or tractor) level of a scene. The display size and consistency of the global and local levels were varied. Response latencies supported global precedence for small scenes (4°) but local precedence for large scenes (16°). The results are interpreted by a model in which the priority of processing is determined by a critical spatial frequency sampling bandwidth.Portions of this research were presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Minneapolis, November, 1982. The authors with to express their sincere appreciation to Tom Petros for his assistance in data analysis. Requests for reprints should be addressed to James R. Antes, Department of Psychology, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202.     

Holistic processes in the perception and transformation of disoriented figures

Two experiments tested whether mental rotation of complex, hierarchical stimuli occurs holistically or separately at global and local levels of structure. Large (global) letters were constructed from spatial arrangements of small (local) letters. Reflection conditions (normal vs. reflected) were produced by varying the two levels independently. The task was structured so that subjects could rotate one level of the stimulus in some conditions but had to rotate both levels in other conditions. Experiment 1 showed that rotation rate was not affected by the number of levels that had to be rotated to make a reflection decision. This result implies that the rotation of global and local levels occurred together rather than sequentially. Experiment 2 showed that the rotation of the two levels was holistic as opposed to parallel and independent. The results also demonstrate that global information is processed faster than local information regardless of whether or not a rotation is performed. These findings are discussed in relation to theories of mental rotation and global precedence.     

Global and local precedence: selective attention in form and motion perception

This study explores the perception of stimuli at two levels: local parts and the wholes that comprise these parts. Previous research has produced contradictory results. Some studies (e.g., Pomerantz & Sager, 1975) show local precedence, in which the local parts are more difficult to ignore in selective attention tasks. Other studies (e.g., Navon, 1977) have shown the opposite effect, global precedence. The present five experiments trace the causes of this discrepancy by exploring the effects of the relative discriminabilities of the local and global levels of the stimuli and the differences between two different measures of selective attention, namely, Stroop-type interference (attributable to incongruity on the irrelevant dimension) and Garner-type interference (attributable to variability on the irrelevant dimension). The experiments also examine whether the precedence effects previously examined in form perception generalize to motion perception. The results show that (a) some cases of global precedence are due solely to the greater perceptual discriminability of the global level and thus demonstrate only that more discriminable stimuli are harder to ignore; (b) instances of both local and global precedence can be demonstrated for certain types of stimuli, even when the discriminabilities of their local and global levels have been equated; and (c) the Stroop and Garner measures of selective attention are not equivalent but instead measure different types of interference. In addition, a distinction is made between two fundamentally different types of part-whole relationships that exist in visual configurations, one based only on the positions of the parts (Type P) and one based also on the nature of the parts (Type N). Previous research has focused on Type P, which appears to be irrelevant to the broader questions of Gestalt and top-down effects in perception. It is concluded that bona fide cases of both local and global precedence have been amply documented but that no general theory can account for why or when these effects will appear until we better understand both the nature of part-whole relationships and the perceptual processes that are tapped by different measures of selective attention.