Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: While scene context is known to facilitate object recognition, little is known about which contextual "ingredients" are at the heart of this phenomenon. Here, we address the question of whether the materials that frequently occur in scenes (e.g., tiles in a bathroom) associated with specific objects (e.g., a perfume) are relevant for the processing of that object. To this end, we presented photographs of consistent and inconsistent objects (e.g., perfume vs. pinecone) superimposed on scenes (e.g., a bathroom) and close-ups of materials (e.g., tiles). In Experiment 1, consistent objects on scenes were named more accurately than inconsistent ones, while there was only a marginal consistency effect for objects on materials. Also, we did not find any consistency effect for scrambled materials that served as color control condition. In Experiment 2, we recorded event-related potentials and found N300/N400 responses-markers of semantic violations-for objects on inconsistent relative to consistent scenes. Critically, objects on materials triggered N300/N400 responses of similar magnitudes. Our findings show that contextual materials indeed affect object processing-even in the absence of spatial scene structure and object content-suggesting that material is one of the contextual "ingredients" driving scene context effects.
Source: Scientific Reports
Authors: Tim Lauer, Filipp Schmidt, Melissa L.-H. Võ
Institutions: Goethe University Frankfurt, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,084
Funder: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
OpenAlex ID: W3173277780