Dual Representation Of Photographs: Is Perceptual Interpretation Of View-Boundaries Flexible?
Date
2021-05
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University of Delaware
Abstract
Pictures are considered dual-representation stimuli; they represent a scene in the world (that continues) while at the same time are objects unto themselves (that are finite). Research on spatial memory for scenes suggests that observers tend to perceive photographs a view of the world, as if the boundaries of the photograph were the edges of a window (Intraub, 2010). This may have to do with our brain’s perception of figure-ground assignment. This assignment can sometimes be flexible which means that boundary ownership may be flexible; meaning a boundary can either be owned by the photograph as an object or by the window through which we are seeing the world. This can be tested by measuring boundary extension; a memory error in which close-up views of a photograph typically elicit false memory beyond pictures' boundaries (indicating a bias toward the first type of representation). By adjusting task demands we plan to bias perception of the pictures' boundaries as bounding an object (the second type of representation) to determine if false memory beyond the view will eliminated (or minimized). Both experiments tested participants memories of photographs that were simple scene photographs cut into meaningful shapes (e.g., hand, star, puzzle piece). There was a scene group that was instructed to focus on the scene and shape group that was instructed to focus on the shape. In Experiment 1, stimuli were presented for 3 s each. Both groups exhibited equivalent boundary extension. Perhaps we were able to change boundary ownership originally, but the participants had too much time to view the stimuli and boundary owner ship changed. In Experiment 2 stimuli were briefly presented (340 ms). Here the groups differed, but in an unexpected way; boundary extension only occurred in the shape group. We provide an explanation for these results that involves source monitoring (Johnson et. al., 1993). However, what is clear in terms of our original question is that even when the boundaries formed a meaningful shape of their own, the presence of a view of the world biases boundary ownership to the “window”; this may suggest that viewing the world through the “window” of our visual field may have important ecological significance
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Keywords
Boundary ownership, Memory, Photograph