A research program consisting of 10 experiments has been conducted to determine (a) the nature of those physical properties of nonrepresentational visual patterns which are most likely to govern human “viewing times” and (b) whether dimensions found to correlate with human behavior bear similar relations to the “attentional” behavior of the squirrel monkey. The present paper reports the final 3 experiments of the series and presents an empirical and theoretical summary of the results of the program. It is concluded that human examination of nonrepresentational patterns is largely determined by both physical structure (especially contour extent) and amount of perceived information. It is also concluded that two dimensions found to govern human viewing (number and elevation of pattern components) have similar effects on the behavior of the squirrel monkey, and, with regard to other dimensions, that no statistically reliable evidence exists to suggest that any dimension affects the attentional behavior of one species in a manner contrary to that of the other species.
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