Constructing Structural Descriptions

Abstract

The author discusses the function of structural descriptions (SDs) during object identification, as revealed by immediate priming experiments. Several claims are made. First, SDs can changedynamically in complexity, from being detailed during initial identification to being somewhatabstract when processing is extended over time, as during scene perception. Second, during initial identification SDs encode relations between components, including somewhat detailed size relations. Third, identification is a process in which SDs are constructed over time. In new experiments that are reported, construction (identification) was facilitated by primes that provided a higher-order structural relation- orientation of axis or reference frame. These effects varied with the orientation of the critical features. The results were inconsistent with an alternative explanation of facilitation effects in terms of feature suppression.