The contribution of scene context on change detection performance

The gist of a visual scene is perceived in a fraction of a second but in change detection tasks subjects typically need several seconds to find the changing object in a visual scene. Here, we report influences of scene context on change detection performance. Scene context manipulations consisted of scene inversion, scene jumbling, where the images were cut into 24 pieces and randomly recombined, and scene configuration scrambling, where the arrangement of the objects in the scene was randomized. Reaction times, where significantly lower in images with normal scene context. We conclude that scene context structures scene perception. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.