Mandatory Processing of the Background in the Detection of Objects in Scenes

Abstract

Would the relationships between an object and its real-world setting affect the detectibility of that object even when the observer knew what the object was and where it would appear? Mandatory processing of scene backgrounds was investigated using a pre-cue design in which the target object's name and location was supplied to the subject prior to a single 100 msec. presentation of a line drawing of a real-world scene. The deleterious effect of violating relationships between the target and background indicated that the processing of the scene background was mandatory and affected the perceptability of the target rather than the memory of the scene.