DOES ORIENTATION-INDEPENDENT OBJECT RECOGNITION PRECEDE ORIENTATION-DEPENDENT RECOGNITION - EVIDENCE FROM A CUEING PARADIGM

Object recognition may entail an incremental normalization process bef ore access to canonical orientation representations, but is this proce ss guided by prior access to object-centered representations? In Exper iment 1, the authors showed observers figure-ground stimuli known to r eflect access to, and output from, stored shape representations. The s timuli appeared in each of 6 different orientations, preceded by cues providing either (a) no information, (b) upright shape information onl y, (c) upright shape information plus orientation information (separat ely), or (d) shape information in the same orientation as the upcoming figure-ground test stimulus. Contrary to predictions by a postaccess account, the cues failed to eliminate orientation dependency in shape recognition. The results favor a preaccess account of the normalizatio n process within the context of canonical orientation representations.