Contextual relations: The influence of familiarity, physical plausibility, and belongingness

Abstract

Individual differences were obtained in a task requiring the same-different comparison of multiobject scenes. For some Ss, performance depended only on whether the objects were in a physically plausible arrangement. It was inferred that these Ss used internalized rule systems to interrelate arrays of objects into organized scenes. For the other Ss, performance depended on whether the objects belonged together, and whether their arrangement was familiar. It was inferred that these Ss dealt with each object on an individual basis, using information concerning belongingness and familiarity of arrangement to anticipate which objects would be present and where they would be located.