The influence of spatial location on same-different judgments of facial identity and expression

The development of visual cognition: The emergence of spatial congruency bias

In adults, spatial location plays a special role in visual object processing. People are more likely to judge two sequentially presented objects as being identical when they appear in the same location compared to in different locations (a phenomenon referred to as Spatial Congruency Bias [SCB]). However, no comparable Identity Congruency Bias (ICB) is found, suggesting an asymmetric location-identity relationship in object binding. What gives rise to this asymmetric congruency bias? This paper considered two possible hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 suggests that the asymmetric congruency bias results from an inherently special role of location in the visual system. In contrast, Hypothesis 2 suggests that the asymmetric congruency bias is a product of development, reflecting people's experience with the world. To distinguish the two hypotheses, we tested both adults' and 5-year-old children's SCB and ICB by Identity Judgment Experiments and Spatial Judgment Experiments, respectively. The study found that adults only exhibited a SCB, but no ICB. However, young children exhibited both SCB and ICB, suggesting a symmetric congruency bias and reciprocal influences between location and identity in early development. The results indicate that the asymmetric location-identity relationship develops as object identity's influence on location gets pruned away, while location's influence on identity is preserved, possibly due to people's gained experiences with regularities of the world. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Adults exhibit Spatial Congruency Bias-an asymmetric location-identity relationship with location biasing their judgment of object identities, but not vice versa. Asymmetric congruency bias may result from an inherently special role of location in visual system (Hypothesis 1) or accumulated experiences with the world (Hypothesis 2). To distinguish the two hypotheses, the study investigated the Spatial Congruency Bias and Identity Congruency Bias in both adults and 5-year-old children. Unlike adults who exhibited only Spatial Congruency Bias, 5-year-old children exhibited both Spatial Congruency Bias and Identity Congruency Bias.

The dominance of spatial information in object identity judgments: A persistent congruency bias even amidst conflicting statistical regularities

Previous studies have posited that spatial location plays a special role in object recognition. Notably, the "spatial congruency bias (SCB)" is a tendency to report objects as the same identity if they are presented at the same location, compared to different locations. Here we found that even when statistical regularities were manipulated in the opposite direction (objects in the same location were three times more likely to be different identities), subjects still exhibited a robust SCB (more likely to report them as the same identity). We replicated this finding across two preregistered experiments. Only in a third experiment where we explicitly informed subjects of the manipulation did the SCB disappear, though the lack of a significantly reversed bias suggests the ingrained congruency bias was not completely overcome. The inclusion of catch trials where the second object was completely masked further bolsters previous evidence that the congruency bias is perceptual, not simply a guessing strategy. These results reinforce the dominant role of spatial information during object recognition and present the SCB as a strong perceptual phenomenon that is incredibly hard to overcome even in the face of opposing regularities and explicit instruction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).