Role of Identical Component Information in Visual Tasks

Information about structure and relationships among §components is an important part of representation. §Simple types of relationships may be available at a §perceptual level. The role of component and §relational information is explored across form §comparison tasks, and tasks involving multiple item §displays. Stimulus comparisons were designed that §shared primitive physical components, primitive §and relational components, or neither type of §component. Participants were asked to make §similarity judgments or same-different judgments of §items designed to differ in either primitive §component or relational information. Participants §were asked to locate or detect a different region or §element in multi-element displays. Relational §components were more important than primitive §components across the range of perceptual tasks §studied, although shared primitive components also §had an impact. This is consistent with previous §research suggesting early availability of some types §of relational information,and suggests a need to §look at the types of structural information that may §be available in different types of tasks or contexts.