Deck 4: Recognizing Visual Objects

Question 1

According to the principles of figure-ground organization, a region that corresponds to object shapes stored in memory is likely to be perceived as _____, and a region that is asymmetrical is likely to be perceived as _____.

A) figure; ground
B) ground; figure
C) figure; figure
D) ground; ground

Answer 1

A

Question 2

_____ is the process by which the visual system determines the location, orientation, and curvature of visual borders in the retinal image.

A) Perceptual grouping
B) Border ownership
C) Perceptual interpolation
D) Edge extraction

Answer 2

D

Question 3

_____ refers to the fact that the world contains an enormous diversity of objects.

A) Image clutter
B) Object variety
C) Heuristics
D) Prosopagnosia

Answer 3

B

Question 4

According to the principles of figure-ground organization, a ground is more likely to be perceived in regions:

A) with symmetrical borders.
B) with concave borders.
C) that are completely surrounded by another region.
D) that are perceived to be in front of another region.

Question 5

In the context of neural basis of border ownership assignment in humans, Fang et al. (2009) conducted an fMRI experiment. In the experiment, the participants viewed two pinwheel-like patterns with elongated light and dark wedges. The results of this experiment demonstrated that the neurons in _____ play a role in border assignment.

A) area V1
B) area V2
C) area V4
D) the IT cortex area

Question 6

The process by which the visual system combines separate regions of the retinal image that "go together" based on similar properties is called:

A) perceptual grouping.
B) border ownership.
C) perceptual interpolation.
D) figure-ground perception.

Question 7

Perceptual organization, a part of the perceptual process, does NOT:

A) represent uniform regions bounded by edges.
B) group together regions that have similar properties.
C) use higher-level processes to represent objects fully enough to recognize them.
D) fill in missing edges and surfaces to obtain more complete representations of candidate objects.

Question 8

Jerome opens his refrigerator and finds a carton of milk partially blocking a carton of eggs. His visual system is still able to perceive the egg carton in its entirety. This illustrates:

A) perceptual grouping.
B) border ownership.
C) perceptual interpolation.
D) object variety.

Question 9

When people watch an ice-skating show, they perceptually place all the people skating to the left in one group and those skating to the right in a separate group. According to the principles of perceptual grouping clarified by the Gestalt psychologists, this illustrates the principle of:

A) proximity.
B) similarity.
C) common motion.
D) symmetry.

Question 10

_____, a complication in the analysis of object recognition, refers to a characteristic of visual scenes in which many objects are scattered in 3-D space, with partial occlusion of various parts of objects by other objects.

A) Image clutter
B) Object variety
C) Topographic agnosia
D) Prosopagnosia

Question 11

According to the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin (1921/2001), when there is an ambiguity of border ownership for images with black and white regions, the border between the two regions is perceived as belonging to:

A) the white region only.
B) the black region only.
C) one region or the other.
D) both the regions simultaneously.

Question 12

People suffering from a condition known as prosopagnosia are NOT able to:

A) drive a car.
B) read a book.
C) recognize people by their hair color and style.
D) recognize people by their faces.

Question 13

According to the principles of figure-ground organization, a region with symmetrical borders is more likely to be seen as a _____, and a region with convex (outward-bulging) borders is more likely to be perceived as a _____.

A) figure; figure
B) ground; figure
C) figure; ground
D) ground; ground

Question 14

According to the principles of perceptual grouping clarified by the Gestalt psychologists, the principle of _____ states that elements that are close together group more easily than elements that are far apart.

A) proximity
B) similarity
C) good continuation
D) symmetry and parallelism

Question 15

_____ refer to the different retinal images that can be projected by the same object or category of objects, depending on the orientation of the object and the viewpoint of the observer.

A) Edges
B) Regions
C) Variable views
D) Illusory contours

Question 16

_____ refers to the perception that an edge is possessed by a particular region of the retinal image.

A) Perceptual grouping
B) Border ownership
C) Perceptual interpolation
D) Figure-ground perception

Question 17

According to the principles of perceptual grouping clarified by the Gestalt psychologists, the principle of _____ states that elements that are alike tend to group together.

A) proximity
B) similarity
C) common motion
D) symmetry and parallelism

Question 18

According to the principles of perceptual grouping clarified by the Gestalt psychologists, the principle of _____ states that elements that move in unison are likely to be perceptually grouped.

A) proximity
B) similarity
C) common motion
D) symmetry and parallelism

Question 19

The process by which the visual system fills in hidden edges and surfaces in order to represent the entirety of a partially visible object is called:

A) figure-ground perception.
B) border ownership.
C) perceptual grouping.
D) perceptual interpolation.

Question 20

_____ refers to a pattern of neural activity in the brain that contains information about a stimulus and gives rise to a subjective perceptual experience of that stimulus, and _____ refers to the process of matching the representation of a stimulus to a representation stored in long-term memory, based on previous encounters with that stimulus or with similar stimuli.

A) Representation; recognition
B) Recognition; representation
C) Perceptual grouping; perceptual interpolation
D) Perceptual interpolation; perceptual grouping

Question 21

The responses of individual neurons in the medial temporal lobes of epilepsy patients who were undergoing single-neuron recording as part of their treatment (Quiroga et al., 2005) support:

A) modular coding.
B) distributed coding.
C) the recognition by components model for object recognition.
D) the presence of a type of grandmother cell in the brain.

Question 22

According to the _____, specific parts of the IT and occipital cortices along the ventral visual pathway are specialized for representing objects of specific categories.

A) modular coding view
B) distributed coding view
C) recognition by components approach
D) recognition by specific viewpoints approach

Question 23

In the context of shape representation in V4, individual neurons in area V4 respond MOST strongly to edges that can be more complex than those in V1 when:

A) the edges are straight or curved.
B) the contour with the preferred orientation is at any angular position.
C) an edge with its preferred curvature is different across a range of locations of the edge within the retinal image.
D) an edge with its preferred orientation is different across a range of locations of the edge within the retinal image.

Question 24

According to the _____, objects are represented by the pattern of activity across relatively wide expanses of cortex along the ventral pathway regardless of the category of objects.

A) modular coding view
B) distributed coding view
C) recognition by components approach
D) recognition by specific viewpoints approach

Question 25

Perceptual interpolation consists of _____ and _____.

A) edge completion; common motion
B) edge completion; surface completion
C) common motion; surface completion
D) common motion; good continuation

Question 26

In the context of neural basis of perceptual grouping, Gray et al. (1989) studied synchronized neural oscillations by recording the responses of pairs of neurons with the same orientation preference in the primary visual cortex of an anesthetized cat. The results showed that:

A) the neural oscillations were strongly synchronized when both receptive fields were stimulated by a single long bar.
B) there was no synchronization of the neural oscillations when two separate bars of light moved in the same direction across receptive fields.
C) the neural oscillations were strongly synchronized when two separate bars of light moved in opposite directions across receptive fields.
D) there was no synchronization of the neural oscillations when both receptive fields were stimulated either with a single bar or with two separate bars.

Question 27

In the context of object recognition, the approach that is based on the idea that objects are represented in a view-specific manner states that:

A) multiple representations are stored in the memory for any given object.
B) recognition of an object depends on first identifying its primitive geometric components.
C) representation of an object involves specifying its parts and their spatial relationships.
D) a single representation is stored in the memory for any given object.

Question 28

_____ is the first area of the visual cortex that belongs exclusively to the ventral visual pathway.

A) V1
B) V2
C) V4
D) IT

Question 29

Using heuristics to guide the interpretation of a retinal image based on knowledge of physical regularities in the world is called:

A) edge extraction.
B) surface completion.
C) perceptual inference.
D) border ownership.

Question 30

In the context of modular and distributed representations, the _____ area in the ventral visual pathway is activated by _____.

A) extrastriate body; faces
B) extrastriate body; buildings and outdoor scenes
C) parahippocampal place; human and animal bodies
D) parahippocampal place; buildings and outdoor scenes

Question 31

In the context of neural basis of perceptual grouping, which principle of perceptual grouping may be represented by synchronized neural oscillations according to Gray et al. (1989)?

A) the principle of meaningfulness
B) the principle of similarity
C) the principle of proximity
D) the principle of symmetry

Question 32

When watching a soccer game, people perceptually place all the players wearing blue in one group and those wearing white in a separate group. According to the principles of perceptual grouping clarified by the Gestalt psychologists, this illustrates the principle of:

A) proximity.
B) similarity.
C) common motion.
D) symmetry.

Question 33

Individual _____ neurons respond MOST strongly to specific combinations of contour fragments, which can be located almost anywhere in the visual field.

A) V1
B) V2
C) V4
D) IT

Question 34

In the context of neural basis of perceptual interpolation, von der Heydt et al. (1984) conducted experiments with monkeys to record the responses of single neurons in area V2. The figure shows four stimuli and four response patterns for neurons in area V2. These recordings suggest that there is a neural basis for the representation of:

A) illusory contours.
B) image clutter.
C) variable views.
D) surfaces.

Question 35

_____ refers to a neuron that responds to a particular object at a conceptual level, firing in response to the object itself, a photo of it, its printed name, and so on.

A) Figure
B) Ground
C) Eigenface
D) Grandmother cell

Question 36

Nonexistent but perceptually real edges perceived as a result of edge completion are referred to as:

A) object variety.
B) variable views.
C) image clutter.
D) illusory contours.

Question 37

Single neurons in the _____ cortex have much larger receptive fields and cover almost the entire retinal image.

A) V1
B) V2
C) V4
D) IT

Question 38

In the context of object recognition, the recognition by components model proposes that:

A) recognizing an object depends on first identifying its different stored representations.
B) each representation of an object corresponds to a different possible view of the object.
C) recognizing an object depends on first identifying its basic 3-D shapes.
D) the primitive geometrical components of an object are compared to all its stored representations simultaneously.

Question 39

According to the principles of perceptual grouping clarified by the Gestalt psychologists, the principle of _____ states that two edges that would meet if extended are perceived as a single edge that has been partially occluded.

A) common motion
B) proximity
C) symmetry and parallelism
D) good continuation

Question 40

According to fMRI experiments that measured activity in the human brain as subjects viewed alternating 30-second sequences of faces versus other types of objects (Kanwisher et al., 1997), a region of the IT cortex responded more vigorously to:

A) intact faces.
B) scrambled faces.
C) houses.
D) different objects.

Question 41

Describe eigenfaces. How do they help in automatic face recognition?

Question 42

Describe modular coding in the context of object recognition. Provide evidence to support this view of object recognition.

Question 43

Explain the results of an fMRI study in which people viewed images of houses, faces, and chairs (Ishai et al., 1999), which suggested that the representation of a viewed object is both modular and distributed.

Question 44

_____ uses eigenfaces, which are face images generated from a set of digital images of human faces taken under the same lighting conditions, normalized to line up the eyes and mouths, and rendered with the same spatial resolution.

A) A feature-based approach
B) A holistic approach
C) The fusiform face area
D) The extrastriate body area

Question 45

The _____ focuses on identifying the most prominent anatomical attributes of a face and the spatial relations among them.

A) feature-based approach
B) holistic approach
C) recognition by specific viewpoints model
D) Bayesian approach

Question 46

Discuss the three complications that arise during the analysis of object recognition.

Question 47

An important problem in understanding object recognition is understanding how invariance is achieved. Explain the two approaches to this problem that have been proposed.

Question 48

Top-down information flow MOST clearly involves:

A) variable views.
B) flow from lower to higher regions of the visual hierarchy.
C) the perceiver's goals.
D) image clutter.

Question 49

In the context of object recognition, _____ makes use of mathematical probabilities to describe the process of perceptual inference.

A) the Bayesian approach
B) the Helmholtzian theory
C) the Kanizsa triangle
D) Harrower's principle of symmetry

Question 50

Zhou et al. (2000) conducted single-cell recording experiments in monkeys that implicated area V2 in the process of assigning border ownership. Describe the experiment and its results.

Question 51

In the context of object recognition, describe a study that shows that the gist of a scene and the objects within the scene are processed together.

Question 52

List the steps involved in perceptual organization.

Question 53

Topographic agnosia, another category-specific deficit in object recognition, may be due to damage to the:

A) fusiform face area.
B) parahippocampal place area.
C) extrastriate body area.
D) frontal lobe.

Question 54

Davenport and Potter (2004) conducted a study in which participants viewed photos of scenes, presented for only 80 msec, with foreground objects that were either consistent or inconsistent with the scene. Results from the study suggested that:

A) the gist of a scene and the objects within the scene are processed together.
B) accuracy in identifying the object was better when object and scene were inconsistent.
C) accuracy in identifying the scene was better when object and scene were inconsistent.
D) the gist of a scene comes before the object within the scene.

Question 55

People suffering from a condition known as visual agnosia:

A) can name objects in front of them.
B) can recognize objects based on touch.
C) experience a loss of conceptual knowledge.
D) cannot describe the color or location of an object in front of them.

Question 56

Describe the ways in which individual neurons in area V4 respond most strongly to edges that can be more complex than individual neurons in area V1.

Question 57

The _____ involves matching an image of a test face as a whole with the images of the known faces in the database.

A) feature-based approach
B) holistic approach
C) recognition by components model
D) Bayesian approach

Question 58

The German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1866/1925) spoke of vision as a process of:

A) conscious deduction.
B) preconscious prediction.
C) unconscious inference.
D) post-conscious detection.

Question 59

An individual views a scene through venetian blinds. The horizontal slats give a highly fragmented view of the scene beyond it, yet the scene is effortlessly perceived as a continuous whole, along with the objects in it. Explain why it is possible to view the scene as a unified whole, rather than a series of disconnected rectangular shapes.

Question 60

During an fMRI study conducted by Haxby et al. (2001), people were shown photographs of seven different categories of objects (faces, houses, chairs, bottles, shoes, scissors, and cats), as well as photographs of scrambled images. The researchers found that, by analyzing the spatial distribution of cortical activity within a large swath of the IT cortex, they could:

A) perceive regions with convex borders as grounds.
B) predict the object category being viewed with 95 percent accuracy.
C) determine the location, orientation, and curvature of edges in the retinal image of objects.
D) perceive two edges that would meet if extended as a single edge that has been partially occluded.