Object grouping based on real-world regularities facilitates perception by reducing competitive interactions in visual cortex

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1400559111
• Publication Date: 2014-07-15T05:15:59Z
• Authors: Daniel Kaiser; Timo Stein; Marius V. Peelen
• Keywords: Adult; Male; Radiography; Cognition; Pattern Recognition, Visual; 13. Climate action; 05 social sciences; Humans; Female; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; 10. No inequality; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Visual Cortex

Significance A major challenge for visual perception is to select behaviorally relevant objects from scenes containing a large number of distracting objects that compete for limited processing resources. Here, we show that such competitive interactions in human visual cortex are reduced when distracters are positioned in commonly experienced configurations (e.g., a lamp above a dining table), leading to improved detection of target objects. This indicates that the visual system can exploit real-world regularities to group objects that typically co-occur; a plate flanked by a fork and a knife can be grouped into a dining set. This interobject grouping effectively reduces the number of competing objects and thus can facilitate the selection of targets in cluttered, but regular environments.