Constraints on view combination: effects of self-occlusion and differences among familiar and novel views

The use of multiple familiar views of objects to facilitate recognition of novel views has been addressed in a number of behavioral studies, but the results have not been conclusive. The present study was a comprehensive examination of view combination for different types of novel views (internal or external to the studied views) and different objects (amoeboid objects and objects composed of geons; objects with and without self-occlusion across rotation). The authors found that the advantage gained from the study of 2 views was more than the generalization from each of the studied views presented alone. This facilitation occurred only for internal views but not external views. In addition, the benefits from the study of 2 views diminished when (a) the studied views did not share the same visible features and when (b) the studied views were separated by a small angular difference.