Grouping by Proximity in Haptic Contour Detection

Krista E Overvliet, Ralf Th Krampe and Johan Wagemans

PLOS ONE, 2013, vol. 8, issue 6, 1-6

Abstract: We investigated the applicability of the Gestalt principle of perceptual grouping by proximity in the haptic modality. To do so, we investigated the influence of element proximity on haptic contour detection. In the course of four sessions ten participants performed a haptic contour detection task in which they freely explored a haptic random dot display that contained a contour in 50% of the trials. A contour was defined by a higher density of elements (raised dots), relative to the background surface. Proximity of the contour elements as well as the average proximity of background elements was systematically varied. We hypothesized that if proximity of contour elements influences haptic contour detection, detection will be more likely when contour elements are in closer proximity. This should be irrespective of the ratio with the proximity of the background elements. Results showed indeed that the closer the contour elements were, the higher the detection rates. Moreover, this was the case independent of the contour/background ratio. We conclude that the Gestalt law of proximity applies to haptic contour detection.

Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0065412 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 65412&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0065412

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0065412

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().