Top-down influence on bottom-up process: the familiarity effect modulates texture segmentation

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Visual perception
• Human-computer interaction

Background:

• The familiarity effect (FE) describes enhanced search performance when an unfamiliar target is detected within a familiar context.
• This contrasts with the reduced performance observed when a familiar target appears in an unfamiliar context.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically investigate the spatial and temporal conditions influencing the familiarity effect (FE).
• To determine the factors that enable or eliminate the appearance of the FE.
• To explore the underlying cognitive processes, including bottom-up and top-down processing, involved in the FE's search asymmetry.

Main Methods:

• Experiments systematically varied spatial and temporal conditions.
• Data collection was performed as a function of target eccentricity.
• The study analyzed search performance under different contextual familiarities and target characteristics.

Main Results:

• The familiarity effect (FE) demonstrated robustness across various conditions.
• The FE was nearly eliminated only under conditions of high texture element density and extremely short presentation times (43 ms).
• Evidence suggests the involvement of both bottom-up and top-down processes in the FE's search asymmetry.

Conclusions:

• The FE's asymmetry may stem from reduced bottom-up processing resources at peripheral target locations.
• This resource reduction is potentially caused by increased top-down processing demands when encountering unfamiliar contextual elements in foveal vision.
• The findings highlight the interplay between contextual familiarity, attentional processes, and visual search efficiency.