Misperceptions are the price for facilitation in object recognition

Summerfield, Egner, Mangels, and Hirsch (2006) suggested that visual misperception may be triggered by strong yet wrong expectation when sensory data are insufficient. Bar (2003) posits that immediately after stimulus presentation, low frequency spatial information (LFSI) convey the global form of the image which is matched to stored representations in the orbitofrontal cortex to generate predictions of the input. We used signal detection to test whether a strong prediction induced by informative global form, hence reducing the number of possible input matches, would facilitate recognition, but at the price of increasing the rate of misperceptions. Twenty-five participants were presented with target and foil images that shared global form, but differed in details. Pictures with informative global form resulted in higher confidence in recognition and shorter reaction times, but increased false alarms. Predictions of sensory input based on low frequency spatial information allow quick, facilitated recognition. However, the price for speed is the increased rate of misperceptions. © 2011 Psychology Press.