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The Facing-the-Viewer Bias in the Perception of Depth Ambiguous Human Figures

Orthographically-projected biological motion point-light displays generally contain no information about their in-depth orientation, yet observers consistently prefer the facing-the-viewer (FTV) interpretation (Vanrie, Dekeyser and Verfaillie, 2004). This bias has been attributed to the social relevance of such stimuli (Brooks et al., 2008) although local stimulus properties appear to influence the bias (Schouten, Troje and Verfaillie, 2011). In the present study we investigated the cause of the FTV bias. In Experiment 1 we compared FTV bias for various configurations of stick-figures and depth ambiguous human silhouettes. The FTV bias was not present for silhouettes, but was strongly elicited for most stick-figures. We concluded that local attitude assignments for intrinsic structures of stick-figures are subject to inferences about the flexion of body surfaces, and that a visual bias that assumes surfaces to be convex drives the FTV bias. In Experiment 2 we manipulated silhouettes to permit local attitude assignments by using point-lights on emphasized flexion points. As predicted, the inclusion of intrinsic structures produced FTV bias for silhouettes. The results help to unify various findings regarding the FTV bias. We conclude that the FTV bias emerges during the 2 ½-D sketch stage of visual processing (Marr and Nishihara, 1978). / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-08 19:06:06.84

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OKQ.1974/8157
Date13 August 2013
CreatorsWeech, SEAMAS
ContributorsQueen's University (Kingston, Ont.). Theses (Queen's University (Kingston, Ont.))
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish, English
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
RightsThis publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
RelationCanadian theses

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