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Updated: Aug 23, 2025
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Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning
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Seeing Soft Materials Draped Over Objects: A Case Study of Intuitive Physics in Perception, Attention, and Memory.
Kimberly W Wong1, Wenyan Bi1, Amir A Soltani2
1Department of Psychology, Yale University.
Psychological Science
|November 2, 2022
Summary
Vision can "see" physics, not just think about it. Our study shows visual processing extracts intuitive physics, revealing underlying object structures even when covered by soft materials.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Visual Perception
- Psychology
Background:
- Intuitive physics is often linked to high-level cognition.
- The potential for intuitive physics extraction during lower-level visual processing remains underexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether intuitive physics can be extracted during early visual processing.
- To determine if humans can visually perceive the physical properties of objects obscured by soft materials.
Main Methods:
- Utilized change-detection and probe-comparison experiments with online adult participants.
- Presented images of objects covered by soft materials, manipulating visual properties of underlying structure and superficial cloth folds.
Main Results:
- Participants were more adept at detecting changes in underlying object structure compared to superficial cloth folds.
- Detection performance decreased when visual probes highlighted regions of underlying object structure, despite equating visual properties.
Conclusions:
- Vision actively employs intuitive physics to infer the hidden structural properties of scenes.
- Lower-level visual processing contributes to the perception of physical interactions and object properties.
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