ON THE STATISTICAL INDEPENDENCE OF COLOR AND SHAPE IN OBJECT IDENTIFICATION

M. J. Nissen (1985) showed that color and shape are processed independ ently. M. A. Monheit and J. C. Johnston (1994) argued that dependence of color and shape in these experiments was reduced due to random gues sing. They conducted 4 experiments in which they attempted to reduce t he effect of random guessing. A strong dependence of color and shape r eports was observed. In this article the effects that random guessing can have on statistical (in)dependence are analyzed. The authors argue that Monheit and Johnston's analysis is incorrect and inconsistent wi th the data they report and that random guessing can be the cause of s tatistical dependence of color and shape reports.