Rebecca Lawson, Glyn W. Humphreys and Derrick G. Watson, University of Birmingham

In many computational approaches to vision it has been emphasised that object recognition involves the encoding of view-independent descriptions prior to matching to a stored object model, thus enabling objects to be identified across different retinal projections. In contrast, neurophysiological studies suggest that image descriptions are matched to less abstract, view-specific representations, resulting in more efficient access to stored object knowledge for objects presented from a view similar to a stored viewpoint. Evidence favouring a primary role for view-specific object descriptions in object recognition is reported. In a series of experiments employing line drawings of familiar objects, the effects of depth rotation upon the efficiency of object recognition were investigated. Subjects were required to identify an object from a sequence of very briefly presented pictures. The results suggested that object recognition is based opon the matching of image descriptions to view-specific stored representations, and that priming effects under sequential viewing conditions are strongly influenced by the visual similarity of different views of objects.

Perception, (1994), 23, 595-614