Abstract
The interaction of hue and brightness dimensions during preattentive processing was assessed using a novel task. The method combined the texture segregation task of Beck (1966) with the stimulus manipulations of Garner and Felfoldy (1970). Observers were required to make field segregation judgments for textured visual arrays. Fields were segregated by differences on a single dimension, either hue or brightness. For some arrays the second dimension had a constant level, for others it varied irrelevantly. In Experiment 1, the extent of interaction between hue and brightness dimensions was assessed at two levels of hue discriminability. Irrelevant variation of brightness interfered with segregation judgments based on hue at both levels of hue discrirninability. Hue variation did not interfere with judgments based on brightness at either level. Segregation judgments were longer for both hue and brightness arrays in the hard than in the easy hue discriminability stimulus set. In Experiment 2, all arrays were randomly mixed in an unblocked design to determine whether blocking in Experiment 1 produced a general slowing of response for arrays in the hard discriminability set. An identical pattern of asymmetric interference was revealed. Irrelevant variation of brightness interfered with hue segregation judgments at both discriminability levels. Hue variation did not interfere with judgments based on brightness at either level. In the unblocked design, only hue arrays were influenced by the hue discriminability manipulation. In Experiment 3, diecriminability was reduced for brightness and enhanced for hue. A symmetric pattern, whereby hue variation interfered with brightness judgments and brightness variation with hue judgments, was obtained when hue was easy to discriminate. When hue was difficult to discriminate, only brightness variation interfered with hue judgments. These findings are consistent with the claim that simple properties of the stimulus mediate preattentive boundary judgments (Beck, 1966, 1982; Treisman, 1982). Furthermore, the results show that although the dimensions of hue and brightness can promote field segregation, they are highly susceptible to interference from other dimensions present in the array.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Beck, J. (1966). Effect of orientation and of shape similarity on perceptual grouping.Perception & Psychophysics,1, 300–302.
Beck, J. (1967). Perceptual grouping produced by line figures.Perception & Psychophysics,2, 491–495.
Beck, J. (1972). Similarity grouping and peripheral discriminability under uncertainty.American Journal of Psychology,85, 1–19.
Beck, J. (1982). Textural segmentation. In J. Beck (Ed.),Organization and representation in perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Beck, J., Prazdny, K., &Rosenfeld, A. (1983). A theory of textural segmentation. In J. Beck, B. Hope, & A. Rosenfeld (Eds.),Human and machine vision. New York: Academic Press.
Burns, B. B., Shepp, B. E., McDonough, D., &Erlich, W. (1978). The relation between stimulus analyzability and perceived dimensional structure. In G. H. Bower (Ed.),The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 12). New York: Academic Press.
Garner, W. R. (1970). The stimulus in information processing.American Psychologist,25, 350–358.
Garner, W. R. (1974).The processing of information and structure. Potomac, MD: Erlbaum.
Garner, W. R. (1976). Interaction of stimulus dimensions in concept and choice processes.Cognitive Psychology,8, 98–123.
Garner, W. R. (1978). Aspects of a stimulus: Features, dimensions, and configurations. In E. Rosch & B. B. Lloyd (Eds.),Cognition and categorization. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Garner, W. R. (1983). Asymmetric interactions of stimulus dimensions in perceptual information processing. In T. J. Tighe & B. E. Shepp (Eds.),Interactions: Perception, cognition, and development: A Second Dartmouth Multi-Perspective Conference. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Garner, W. R., &Felfoldy, G. L. (1970). Integrality of stimulus dimensions in various types of information processing.Cognitive Psychology,1, 225–241.
Gottwald, R. L., &Garner, W. R. (1975). Filtering and condensation tasks with integral and separable stimuli.Perception & Psychophysics,18, 26–28.
Handel, S., &Imai, S. (1972). The free classification of analyzable and unanalyzable stimuli.Perception & Psychophysics,12, 108–116.
Hyman, R., &Well, A. (1967). Judgments of similarity and spatial models.Perception & Psychophysics,2, 233–248.
Kahneman, D. (1973).Attention and effort. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Lindquist, E. F. (1953).Design and analysis of experiments in psychology and education. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Neisser, U. (1967).Cognitive psychology. New York: Appelton-Century-Crofts.
Shepp, B. E. (1983). The analyzability of multidimensional stimuli: Some constraints on perceived structure and attention. In T. J. Tighe & B. E. Shepp (Eds.),Interactions: Perception, cognition, and development: A Second Dartmouth Multi-Perspective Conference. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Shepp, B. E., &Swartz, K. B. (1976). Selective attention and the processing of integral and nonintegral dimensions: A developmental study.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology,22, 73–85.
Torgerson, W. S. (1958).Theory and methods of scaling. New York: Wiley.
Treisman, A. M. (1979). The psychological reality of levels of processing. In L. S. Cermak & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.),Levels of processing in human memory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Treisman, A. M. (1982). Perceptual grouping and attention in visual search for features and for objects.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance,8, 194–214.
Treisman, A. (in press). Properties, parts, and objects. In K. Boff, L. Kaufman, & J. Thomas (Eds.),Handbook of perception and human performance. New York: Wiley.
Treisman, A., &Gelade, G. (1980). A feature-integration theory of attention.Cognitive Psychology,12, 97–136.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
A portion of this research was conducted while the author was a doctoral candidate at Brown University. The remainder was completed at Yale University, where the author is a postdoctoral fellow. The research was supported by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellowship to Tara C. Callaghan, by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 14229 to Wendell R. Garner, and by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant HD13406 to Bryan E. Shepp.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Callaghan, T.C. Dimensional interaction of hue and brightness in preattentive field segregation. Perception & Psychophysics 36, 25–34 (1984). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206351
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206351