A FORMAL THEORY OF FEATURE BINDING IN OBJECT PERCEPTION

Visual objects are perceived correctly only if their features are iden tified and then bound together. Illusory conjunctions result when feat ure identification is correct but an error occurs during feature bindi ng. A new model is proposed that assumes feature binding errors occur because of uncertainty about the location of visual features. This mod el accounted for data from 2 new experiments better than a model deriv ed from A. M. Treisman and H. Schmidt's (1982) feature integration the ory. The traditional method for detecting the occurrence of true illus ory conjunctions is shown to be fundamentally flawed. A reexamination of 2 previous studies provided new insights into the role of attention and location information in object perception and a reinterpretation of the deficits in patients who exhibit attentional disorders.