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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 5, 2026

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Published on: November 2, 2012

Category selectivity for animals and man-made objects: Beyond low- and mid-level visual features.

Chenxi He¹, Olivia S Cheung¹

¹Department of Psychology, Division of Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Journal of Vision

|October 25, 2019

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Search performance for animals is faster than for man-made objects, driven by efficient categorization rather than just visual features. This highlights how higher-order conceptual processing influences visual search.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Visual Perception

Background:

Distinct categories like animate (animals) and inanimate (man-made objects) have systematic visual differences.
Previous research suggests visual features alone may explain faster visual search for animals.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether low- or mid-level visual features solely account for the visual search advantage of animals over man-made objects.
To determine the role of conceptual information in category-selective visual search.

Main Methods:

Four experiments were conducted using images with controlled visual shape and gist statistics.
Participants performed visual search tasks for animal or man-made object targets among fruit/vegetable distractors.

Main Results:

Consistent faster search performance for animal targets compared to man-made object targets was observed.
This animal search advantage was not significantly affected by low/mid-level visual properties or explicit target instructions.

Conclusions:

The efficiency of categorizing animals, rather than just visual features, likely drives the search advantage.
Higher-order conceptual processing, including interpreting visual input and mapping to concepts, is critical for category-selective effects in visual search.