Perceptual gestalt emerges from redundant contexts: comparative developmental studies

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25730100
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cognitive science
• Research Institution: Sagami Women's University
• Principal Investigator: Goto Kazuhiro 相模女子大学, 人間社会学部, 講師 (20546725)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: パターン優位性効果 / 文脈効果 / ゲシュタルト知覚

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Human adults perceptually group multiple component parts as a whole. In the present study, I compared chimpanzees and humans to examine what aspects of perceptual grouping is unique to humans. I also compared human children and adults to examine how perceptual grouping develops. In a series of experiments, I was particularly interested in the configural superiority effect: despite its irrelevance, redundant contexts improve the participants' performance when the context perceptually grouped with the task-related stimuli. When the shape perception was examined using geometric figures, chimpanzees and human children showed similar configural superiority effect to human adults. However, they failed to show the effect in face perception. I also revealed that human gaze and objects is perceptually grouped when the gaze is oriented towards the objects. In summary, basic principles of perceptual gestalts are shared between humans and chimpanzees, as well as human adults and children.

Free Research Field

比較認知科学