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Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Generating Strictly Controlled Stimuli for Figure Recognition Experiments
Published on: March 18, 2019
Attentional selection of complex objects: joint effects of surface uniformity and part structure
Lauren N Hecht1, Shaun P Vecera
1Department of Psychology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1407, USA. lauren-hecht@uiowa.edu
Abstract:
What object properties warrant selection by object-based attention? Previous research has suggested that surface uniformity is required for object-based attentional selection (Watson & Kramer, 1999), yet nonuniform objects are encountered frequently. In the present experiments, we investigated the interplay between surface uniformity and part boundaries and their effect on object-based attention. Specifically, we asked if attention can select nonuniform objects whose surface changes occur at part boundaries. Although uniformly colored objects did exhibit object-based effects, we only observed an object-based effect for multicolored objects when surface changes occurred at part boundaries. These findings suggest that attention can only select nonuniform objects when the surface change occurs at a part boundary.
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