Don’t be a Square: The processing mechanisms characterising the elemental dimensions of width and height

Abstract

What are the geometric and information processing characteristics of elementary figures composed of simple physical dimensions? There have been a number of investigations of perception of rectangles, including debate about configurality (e.g., integrality and gestalt properties) as well as the prime perceptual dimensions. Yet, because of ambiguity even in the “right” definition of configurality and an absence of penetrating methodologies, there is still little known concerning the information processing of these patterns. To this end, the present study brings together two separate theory-driven methodologies, general recognition theory (GRT) and systems factorial technology (SFT). The first attacks the problem of dimensional interactions while the latter seeks to uncover process characteristics such as architecture, decisional stopping rules, and workload capacity. The same observers and as much as possible, the same stimuli were used in both approaches. Through our GRT analyses, we found strong evidence for dependencies between the percepts of height and width on both within-stimulus and cross-stimulus bases. Height perception was better with narrow widths and width perception was superior with short heights. In addition, a significant positive within-trial correlation of dimensions was evidenced within squares but not with rectangles. Our SFT initiative uncovered consistent signatures of parallelism paired with super capacity, the latter appearing both through the traditional conditioning on being correct and still present when modest speed accuracy trade-off was accounted for. Thus, the SFT and GRT inferences were quite compatible with a plausible cause of the positive correlations being across-channel facilitatory interactions which led to super capacity processing.