A comparison of verbal and non-verbal reports of fragmenting visual images

Sixty-eight Ss voluntarily restrained head, eye and blinking movements while viewing a luminous “HB” figure in a darkened room. All Ss were told that voluntary fixation would cause parts of the pattern to disappear; they were to report the parts that remained intact. Half of the Ss reported their disappearances verbally. The other half traced their disappearances on an outline “HB” figure. Results showed that the verbal method significantly favored the reporting of elements from the set H, h, B, b, 1, 11, +. These data suggest that response bias rather than perceptual organization may be responsible for the preponderance of meaningful disappearances noted in previous research.