Abstract
The Set visual perception game is a fertile research platform that allows investigation of perception, with gradual processing culminating in a momentary recognition stage, in a context that can be endlessly repeated with novel displays. Performance of the Set game task is a play-off between perceptual and conceptual processes. The task is to detect (among the 12 displayed cards) a 3-card set, defined as containing cards that are either all similar or all different along each of four dimensions with three possible values. We found preference and reduced response times (RTs) for perceiving set similarity (rather than span) and for including cards sharing the most abundant value in the display, suggesting that these are searched preferentially (perhaps by mutual enhancement). RT decreases with number of sets in the display according to a horse race model, implying independence of simultaneous searches. Central cards are included slightly more often, but set card proximity seems irrelevant. A supplementary experiment determining dimensional salience showed consistent but individual preferences, yet these seemed not to affect set identification. Training induced gradual improvement, which generalized to a new version of the game, suggesting high-level learning. We conclude that elements of perception such as similarity detection are basic for finding sets in this task, as in other real-world perceptual and cognitive tasks, suggesting the presence of basic similarity-perceiving mechanisms. The findings confirm the conclusion that conceptual processes are affected by perception.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahissar, M., & Hochstein, S. (1997). Task difficulty and the specificity of perceptual learning. Nature, 387, 401–406.
Ahissar, M., & Hochstein, S. (2004). The reverse hierarchy theory of visual perceptual learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 457–464.
Ashby, G. F., & Maddox, T. W. (2005). Human category learning. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 149–178.
Ashby, G. F., Queller, S., & Berretty, P. M. (1999). On the dominance of unidimensional rules in unsupervised categorization. Perception & Psychophysics, 61, 1178–1199.
Berg, E. A. (1948). A simple objective technique for measuring flexibility in thinking. Journal of General Psychology, 39, 15–22.
Bowden, E. M., & Jung-Beeman, M. (2003). Aha! Insight experience correlates with solution activation in the right hemisphere. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10, 730–737.
Bower, G., & Trabasso, T. (1963). Reversals prior to solution in concept identification. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66, 409–418.
Carr, T. H. (1992). Automaticity and cognitive anatomy: Is word recognition “automatic”? American Journal of Psychology, 105, 201–237.
Corballis, M. C. (1998). Interhemispheric neural summation in the absence of the corpus callosum. Brain, 121, 1795–1807.
Egeth, H. E., & Mordkoff, J. T. (1991). Redundancy gain revisited: Evidence for parallel processing of separable dimensions. In G. R. Lockhead & J. R. Pomerantz (Eds.), The perception of structure: Essays in honor of Wendell R. Garner (pp. 131–143). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Garner, W. R., & Lee, W. (1962). An analysis of redundancy in perceptual discrimination. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 15, 367–388.
Goldstone, R. L. (1994). The role of similarity in categorization: Providing a groundwork. Cognition, 52, 125–157.
Goldstone, R. L. (1998). Perceptual learning. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 585–612.
Goldstone, R. L., & Barsalou, L. W. (1998). Reuniting perception and conception. Cognition, 65, 231–262.
Graham, N. V. S. (1989). Visual pattern analyzers. New York: Oxford University Press.
Grant, D. A., & Berg, E. (1948). A behavioral analysis of degree of reinforcement and ease of shifting to new responses in a Weigl-type card sorting problem. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 404–411.
Hammer, R., Diesendruck, G., Weinshall, D., & Hochstein, S. (2008). The development of category learning strategies: What makes the difference? Manuscript submitted for publication.
Hammer, R., Hertz, T., Hochstein, S., & Weinshall, D. (2005). Category learning from equivalence constraints. Cognitive Sciences, 27(Suppl.), 893–898.
Hammer, R., Hertz, T., Hochstein, S., & Weinshall, D. (2007). Classification with positive and negative equivalence constraints: Theory, computation and human experiments. In F. Mele, G. Ramella, S. Santillo, & F. Ventriglia (Eds.), Brain, vision, and artificial intelligence (pp. 264–276). Berlin: Springer.
Hammer, R., Hertz, T., Hochstein, S., & Weinshall, D. (in press). Category learning from equivalence constraints. Cognitive Processing.
Heaton, R. K., Chelune, G. J., Talley, J. L., Kay, G. C., & Curtiss, G. (1993). Wisconsin Card Sorting Test manual, revised and expanded. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Hochstein, S., & Ahissar, M. (2002). View from the top: Hierarchies and reverse hierarchies in the visual system. Neuron, 36, 791–804.
Holyoak, K. J. (1990). Problem solving. In D. N. Osherson & E. E. Smith (Eds.), Thinking: An invitation to cognitive science (Vol. 3, pp. 117–146). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Koffka, K. (1935). Principles of Gestalt psychology. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Köhler, W. (1929). Gestalt psychology. New York: Liversight.
Landy, D., & Goldstone, R. L. (2007). How abstract is symbolic thought? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 33, 720–733.
Medin, D. L. (1973). Measuring and training dimensional preferences. Child Development, 44, 359–362.
Medin, D. L., Wattenmaker, W. D., & Hampson, S. E. (1987). Family resemblance, conceptual cohesiveness, and category construction. Cognitive Psychology, 19, 242–279.
Miller, J. (1982). Divided attention: Evidence for coactivation with redundant signals. Cognitive Psychology, 14, 247–279.
Miller, J. (1986). Timecourse of coactivation in bimodal divided attention. Perception & Psychophysics, 40, 331–343.
Monnier, P. (2006). Detection of multidimensional targets in visual search. Vision Research, 46, 4083–4090.
Oliva, A., & Torralba, A. (2006). Building the gist of a scene: The role of global image features in recognition. Progress in Brain Research, 155, 23–36.
Pomerantz, J. R. (2002). Perception: Overview. In R. A. Wilson & F. C. Keil (Eds.), Encyclopedia of cognitive science (pp. 527–537). London: Nature Publishing.
Raab, D. H. (1962). Statistical facilitation of simple reaction times. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 24, 574–590.
Regehr, G., & Brooks, L. R. (1993). Perceptual manifestations of an analytic structure: The priority of holistic individuation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 122, 92–114.
Rosch, E., & Mervis, C. B. (1975). Family resemblances: Studies in the internal structure of categories. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 573–605.
Rosch, E., Mervis, C. B., Gray, W. D., Johnson, D. M., & Boyes-Braem, P. (1976). Basic objects in natural categories. Cognitive Psychology, 8, 382–439.
Rubin, N., Nakayama, K., & Shapley, R. (1997). Abrupt learning and retinal size specificity in illusory contour perception. Current Biology, 7, 461–467.
Schyns, P. G., Bonnar, L., & Gosselin, F. (2002). Show me the features! Understanding recognition from the use of visual information. Psychological Science, 13, 402–409.
Schyns, P. G., & Oliva, A. (1994). From blobs to boundary edges: Evidence for time and spatial scale dependent scene recognition. Psychological Science, 5, 195–200.
Smith, M. L., Gosselin, F., & Schyns, P. G. (2006). Perceptual moments of conscious visual experience inferred from oscillatory brain activity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 5626–5631.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643–662.
Townsend, J. T., & Ashby, F. G. (1983). Stochastic modeling of elementary psychological processes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Treisman, A., Vieira, A., & Hayes, A. (1992). Automaticity and preattentive processing. American Journal of Psychology, 105, 341–362.
Tversky, A. (1977). Features of similarity. Psychological Review, 84, 327–352.
Ullman, S. (1984). Visual routines. Cognition, 18, 97–159.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by grants from the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jacob, M., Hochstein, S. Set recognition as a window to perceptual and cognitive processes. Perception & Psychophysics 70, 1165–1184 (2008). https://doi.org/10.3758/PP.70.7.1165
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/PP.70.7.1165