Perceptual Load Influence The Detection And Integration Of Contours

Nowadays,human visual system has been frequently used in pattern recognition algorithms to construct more efficient models,so as to solve the problem of machine recognition in our daily life.Contour detection and integration is one of fatal part of visual system in processing of object recognition.Previous studies have shown that it can be influenced by many factors,including low-level features,such as color,orientation and frequency,and high-level features like attention,learning and training effect etc.Meanwhile,the attention selection regulated by perceptual load is considered to be closely related to the conscious.However,the nature of perceptual load affects the contour detection and integration under different conscious states(conscious and unconscious)still remain unclear.In this paper,we aim to explore how perceptual load and consciousness jointly influence the contour detection and the interaction effect among them.Otherwise,we want to verify the effect of global closure mechanism on contour detection.In our experiment,obvious and unobvious circle and “S” contours are adopted as the visual stimuli.A go/no-go paradigm is applied to manipulate the perceptual load,and Posner cuing effect is used to evaluate the contour detection capacity.The whole experiment is divided into three phases.The first phase is aimed to investigate how perceptual load influences the process of contours under unconscious state.The second phase,which plays the part of bridge from the first phase to third phase,is aimed to strengthen the learning of contours and investigate how perceptual load influences the process of contours under conscious state.The third phase is aimed to investigate how perceptual load modulate the integration of contours under conscious state.The results show that,(1)the saliency is the most important factor for contour detection.There is no Posner cue effect for unobvious contour at either conscious or unconscious stage for both low and high perceptual load.(2)Perceptual load modulates contour detection.For low perceptual load,although obvious “S” contour cannot induce Posner cuing effect,but obvious circle shows cuing effect under unconscious stage.(3)The global closure mechanism can affect the processing of contour under unconscious state.There is a significant Posner cuing effect for circle contour,but not for “S” contour,without consciousness.In summary,our study shows that significance,perceptual load and conscious state can regulate the contour detection and integration together.But for saliency,low-level feature,plays a significant role in contour detection.Attention resource as a high-level feature,meanwhile,is an essential step in contour detection.