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In contour integration, increased difficulty in detection and shape discrimination of a chain of parallel elements (a ladder contour) compared to collinear elements (a snake contour) suggests more extensive processing of ladders than of snakes. In addition, conceptual similarities between ladders and textures - which also involve grouping of parallel elements - raises the question whether ladder and texture processing requires feedback from higher visual areas while snakes are processed in a fast feedforward sweep. We tested this in a response priming paradigm, where participants responded as quickly and accurately as possible to the orientation of a diagonal contour in a Gabor array (target). The diagonal was defined either by a snake, ladder, texture, or a continuous line. The target was preceded with varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) by a prime that was either a snake, ladder, or texture, and was consistent or inconsistent to the response demands of the target. Resulting priming effects clearly distinguished between processing of snakes, ladders, and textures. Effects generally increased with SOA but were stronger for snakes and textures compared to ladders. Importantly, only priming effects for snakes were fully present already in the fastest response times, in accordance with a simple feedforward processing model. We conclude that snakes, ladders, and textures do not share similar processing characteristics, with snakes exhibiting a pronounced processing advantage.

Original publication

DOI

10.1016/j.visres.2015.03.002

Type

Journal article

Journal

Vision Res

Volume

126

Pages

174 - 182

Keywords

Contour integration, Feedforward, Ladder, Response priming, Snake, Texture segregation, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Discrimination (Psychology), Female, Form Perception, Humans, Male, Models, Psychological, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Photic Stimulation, Psychophysics, Reaction Time, Young Adult