Abstract
Well-specified feature detection models of visual character recognition typically assume feature sampling independence; that is, they assume that the detection of one feature is probabilistically independent of the detection of others. Recent results have suggested this assumption may be suspect with letter-like stimuli. The present study utilized very simple stimuli consisting of up to two straight-line segments that were either physically connected or separated by a gap. A strong model that assumed that features are reported if and only if they are sampled together with independence could not be rejected even when the lines were connected.
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Townsend, J. T., & Ashby, F. G. Testing contemporary models of letter recognition. Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, 1976.
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We would like to thank J. T. Berning for help in conducting the experiments. The first and second authors were supported by NSF Grant BNS76-84053, and the third author was supported by Purdue Research Foundation Grant XR0104 when this research was carried out. This research was presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, San Antonio, November 1978.
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Townsend, J.T., Hu, G.G. & Ashby, F.G. A test of visual feature sampling independence with orthogonal straight lines. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 15, 163–166 (1980). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334497
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334497