Object categorisation
The same object can be categorised at different levels of abstraction. For example, a bird can be categorised as an animal (superordinate level), a bird (basic level) or a songbird (subordinate level). We showed that superordinate decisions were faster than basic ones regardless of presentation time and diversity of stimuli (Poncet & Fabre-Thorpe 2014). We also showed, using a dual-task paradigm, that even though we need longer presentation time to recognize a bird than an animal, we do not need more attentional resources (Poncet. et al. 2012).
Object categorisation is commonly studied using isolated objects, but in the real world, they are seen in context. How do visual categories interact? To test that, we used a priming paradigm. We found that incongruent but similar primes impaired performance more than incongruent dissimilar primes. In general, the results show that the category of the prime, determined by the current task, affects how we process the same image (Poncet et al. 2020). We argue that this effect is shaped by the hierarchical organisation of categories in the human brain. |
Individuating objects
Our environment is cluttered with multiple objects and only a few, up to three or four, can be enumerated efficiently at a glance. We showed that the same neural mechanism underlies individuation of multiple distinct objects and multiple parts of a single object (Poncet et al., 2016).
Interestingly, in a different study, we showed that the selection of object parts only occurs after the selection of the objects themselves (Poncet & Chakravarthi, 2021). This reveals that individuation operates sequentially over different levels.
Interestingly, in a different study, we showed that the selection of object parts only occurs after the selection of the objects themselves (Poncet & Chakravarthi, 2021). This reveals that individuation operates sequentially over different levels.