P. Wenderoth et S. Welsh, THE EFFECTS OF CUEING ON THE DETECTION OF BILATERAL SYMMETRY, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology, 51(4), 1998, pp. 883-903
Pashler (1990) demonstrated that detection of mirror symmetry can be f
acilitated by precuing the symmetry axis orientation with a line. In E
xperiment 1, Pashler's result of a valid pre-cuing benefit was repeate
d, but it was also shown that invalid cuing produces performance costs
, relative to a non-informative cue. Experiment 2 showed that the effe
ct is not purely visual because the letters ''V'' and ''H'' can produc
e the same valid and invalid cuing effects. In Experiments 3A and 3B,
cue and pattern locations were varied, both absolutely and relative to
each other. The results support an explanation for Pashler's atypical
finding that horizontal symmetry can be detected faster than vertical
symmetry. They also showed that the cuing effect is not local, contra
ry to Pashler's conclusion, but global and hence functionally useful.