Emergent features: A new factor in the object-superiority effect?

Abstract

Lanze, Weisstein, and Harris (1982) reported object-superiority effects in which subjects' accuracy for identifying target lines in patterns was correlated more with the patterns' apparent three-dimensionality than with structural relevance of target line to overall pattern. This result (Lanze et al., 1982, Experiment 3) was potentially confounded by the presence of triangular- and arrow-shaped emergent-feature patterns in the pattern that was high in three-dimensionality and low in structural relevance. We report two experiments in which these emergent features and perceived depths are independently varied in a target-identification task. In both experiments, patterns that were high in perceived depth yielded higher accuracy scores than did those low in perceived depth (regardless of emergent features). Similarly, high-emergent-features patterns yielded higher accuracies than did low-emergent-features patterns (regardless of perceived depth). It is argued that each of these factors independently contributes to the object-superiority effect. © 1985 Psychonomic Society, Inc.