The time course of visual object detection and categorization

摘要: Recent work by Grill-Spector and Kanwisher (2005) examined the time course of visual object recognition, contrasting accuracy at object detection, basic-level categorization, and subordinate-level identification across a range of image presentation durations. One intriguing result was that the time-course of object detection and basic-level categorization was identical, prompting them to subtitle their paper “As soon as you know it is there, you know what it is.” This tight temporal coupling is consistent with a view that basic-level categorization may be an initial stage of object perception. An alternative view is that detection, categorization, and identification are perceptual decisions that can be made easier or harder, faster or slower, depending on a variety of task factors. Detection and categorization are both perceptual decisions dependent on a hierarchy of perceptual processing, but they are not associated with any …