Familiarity does not aid access to features

Abstract

Previous findings have suggested that a familiar pattern and the features within it are perceived better than an unfamiliar pattern. In Experiments 1 and 2, access to within-pattern colors in Stars and Stripes flags was equally efficient in the normal and the inverted orientations, thus suggesting that familiarity does not aid access to within-pattern features. However, in Experiment 3, which focused on the detection of the whole of a flag, rather than within-pattern colors, the selection of upright Stars and Stripes flags was significantly more efficient than that of inverted flags, thus confirming the greater familiarity of the former. I argue that familiarity aids the perception of a pattern only by allowing the whole pattern to be labeled as a single feature and does not directly aid access to features. © 2011 Psychonomic Society, Inc.