In recognizing objects and scenes, partial recognition of objects or their parts could be used to guide the recognition of other objects. Here, we investigated psychophysically the role of local features in the recognition of complete gures, and the in uence of contextual information on the identi cation of ambiguous features. We used con gurations of features that were placed in either proper or improper spatial relations, and measured response times and error rates in a recognition task. Two main results were obtained. First, proper spatial relations among the features of a scene decrease response times and error rates in the recognition of individual features. Second, the presence of features that have a unique interpretation in the scene disambiguates the identity of ambiguous features faster and with less errors compared with the same features that appear in isolation, or in improper spatial relations. The implications of these ndings to the organization of recognition memory are discussed, and a framework for a model for using spatial context, which uses the psychophysical ndings, is proposed.
According to Bar et al. REF , who examined the consequences of pairwise spatial relations between objects, suggesting that encoding proper spatial relations among objects may decrease error rates in recognizing objects.
Spatial Context in Recognition
Perception
Psychology Medicine