Behind the looking-glass: A review on human symmetry perception

Symmetry

Volumn 2, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 1510-1543

  Treder, Matthias Sebastian ^a  

^a TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN   (Germany)

Author keywords

Perception; Perception models; Review; Symmetry processing; Vision; Visual organization

Indexed keywords

EID: 84855741673     PISSN: None     EISSN: 20738994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3390/sym2031510     Document Type: Review

References (131)

1. Mach, E. Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen (Contributions to the Analysis of Sensations); Gustav Fisher: Jena, Germany, 1886.
2. van der Helm, P.A.; Leeuwenberg, E.L. Goodness of visual regularities: A nontransformational approach. Psychol. Rev. 1996, 103, 429-456.
3. Swaddle, J.P. Visual signalling by asymmetry: A review of perceptual processes. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B 1999, 354, 1383-1393.
4. Tyler, C.W. Human Symmetry Perception and its Computational Analysis; VSP: Zeist, The Netherlands, 1996.
5. Wagemans, J. Detection of visual symmetries. Spatial Vision 1995, 9, 9-32.
6. Wagemans, J. Characteristics and models of human symmetry detection. Trends Cogn. Sci. 1997, 1, 346-352.
7. Rosen, J. Commentary: Symmetry at the foundation of science and nature. Symmetry 2009, 1, 3-9.
8. Tyler, C.W. Empirical aspects of symmetry perception. Spatial Vision 1995, 9, 1-7.
9. van der Vloed, G. The Structure of Visual Regularities. PhD Thesis, University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 2005.
10. Delius, J.D.; Nowak, B. Visual symmetry recognition by pigeons. Psychol. Res. 1982, 44, 199-212.
11. Benard, J.; Stach, S.; Giurfa, M. Categorization of visual stimuli in the honeybee Apis mellifera. Anim. Cogn. 2006, 9, 257-270.
12. Giurfa, M.; Eichmann, B.; Menzel, R. Symmetry perception in an insect. Nature 1996, 382, 458-461.
13. von Ferson, L.; Manos, C.S.; Goldowsky, B.; Roitblat, H. Marine Mammal Sensory Systems; Plenum: New York, NY, USA, 1992; pp. 753-762.
14. Grammer, K.; Fink, B.; Møller, A.P.; Manning, J.T. Physical attractiveness and health: Comment on Weeden and Sabini (2005). Psychol. Bull. 2005, 131, 658-661.
15. Grammer, K.; Fink, B.; Møller, A.P.; Thornhill, R. Darwinian aesthetics: Sexual selection and the biology of beauty. Biol. Rev. Cambridge Phil. Soc. 2003, 78, 385-407.
16. Grammer, K.; Thornhill, R. Human (Homo sapiens) facial attractiveness and sexual selection: The role of symmetry and averageness. J. Comp. Psychol. 1994, 108, 233-242.
17. Møller, A.P.; Thornhill, R. Bilateral symmetry and sexual selection: A meta-analysis. Amer. Naturalist 1998, 151, 174-192.
18. Scheib, J.E.; Gangestad, S.W.; Thornhill, R. Facial attractiveness, symmetry and cues of good genes. Proc. Roy. Soc. B 1999, 266, 1913-1917.
19. Cairns, P.; Thimbleby, H. Affordance and Symmetry in User Interfaces. Comput. J. 2008, 51, 650-661.
20. Jacobsen, T.; Höfel, L. Descriptive and evaluative judgment processes: Behavioral and electrophysiological indices of processing symmetry and aesthetics. Cogn. Affect. Behav. Neurosci. 2003, 3, 289-299.
21. Jacobsen, T.; Schubotz, R.I.; Höfel, L.; von Cramon, D.Y. Brain correlates of aesthetic judgment of beauty. Neuroimage 2006, 29, 276-285.
22. Palmer, S.E. The Perception of Structure: Essays in Honor of Wendell R. Garner; American Psychological Association: Washington, DC, USA, 1991.
23. Palmer, S.E.; Gardner, J.S.; Wickens, T.D. Aesthetic issues in spatial composition: Effects of position and direction on framing single objects. Spatial Vision 2008, 21, 421-449.
24. Julesz, B. Foundations of Cyclopean Perception; University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, USA, 1971.
25. van der Helm, P.A.; Leeuwenberg, E.L.J. Holographic goodness is not that bad: Reply to Olivers, Chater, and Watson (2004). Psychol. Rev. 2004, 111, 261-273.
26. Koning, A.;Wagemans, J. Detection of symmetry and repetition in one and two objects. Structures versus strategies. Exp. Psychol. 2009, 56, 5-17.
27. Wagemans, J.; Gool, L.V.; d'Ydewalle, G. Detection of symmetry in tachistoscopically presented dot patterns: effects of multiple axes and skewing. Percept. Psychophys. 1991, 50, 413-427.
28. Wagemans, J.; van Gool, L.; d'Ydewalle, G. Orientational effects and component processes in symmetry detection. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. 1992, 44A, 475-508.
29. Wagemans, J.; Gool, L.V.; Swinnen, V.; Horebeek, J.V. Higher-order structure in regularity detection. Vision Res. 1993, 33, 1067-1088.
30. van der Vloed, G.; Csathó, Á.; van der Helm, P.A. Symmetry and repetition in perspective. Acta Psychol. 2005, 120, 74-92.
31. Treder, M.S.; Meulenbroek, R.G.J. Integration of structure-from-motion and symmetry during surface perception. J. Vision 2010, 10, 1-17.
32. Driver, J.; Baylis, G.C.; Rafal, R.D. Preserved figure-ground segregation and symmetry perception in visual neglect. Nature 1992, 360, 73-75.
33. Marshall, J.C.; Halligan, P.W. The Yin and the Yang of visuo-spatial neglect: A case study. Neuropsychologia 1994, 32, 1037-1057.
34. Machilsen, B.; Pauwels, M.; Wagemans, J. The role of vertical mirror symmetry in visual shape detection. J. Vision 2009, 9, 1-11.
35. Andersen, R.A.; Bradley, D.C. Perception of three-dimensional structure from motion. Trends Cogn. Sci. 1998, 2, 222-228.
36. Wallach, H.; O'Connell, D.N. The kinetic depth effect. J. Exp. Psychol. 1953, 45, 205-217.
37. Parovel, G.; Vezzani, S. Mirror symmetry opposes splitting of chromatically homogeneous surfaces. Perception 2002, 31, 693-709.
38. Treder, M.S.; van der Helm, P.A. Symmetry versus repetition in cyclopean vision: a microgenetic analysis. Vision Res. 2007, 47, 2956-2967.
39. Bertamini, M.; Friedenberg, J.; Kubovy, M. Detection of symmetry and perceptual organization: The way a lock-and-key process works. Acta Psychol. 1997, 95, 119-140.
40. Bertamini, M. Sensitivity to reflection and translation is modulated by objectness. Perception 2010, 39, 27-40.
41. Corbalis, M.C.; Roldan, C.E. On the perception of symmetrical and repeated patterns. Percept. Psychophys. 1974, 16, 136-142.
42. Hulleman, J.; Olivers, C.N.L. Concavities count for less in symmetry perception. Psychonomic Bull. Rev. 2007, 14, 1212-1217.
43. Koning, A.; van Lier, R. Object-based connectedness facilitates matching. Percept. Psychophys. 2003, 65, 1094-1102.
44. Koning, A.; van Lier, R. Mental rotation depends on the number of objects rather than on the number of image fragments. Acta Psychol. 2004, 117, 65-77.
45. Koning, A.; van Lier, R. From interpretation to segmentation. Psychonomic Bull. Rev. 2005, 12, 917-924.
46. Barlow, H.B.; Reeves, B.C. The versatility and absolute efficiency of detecting mirror symmetry in random dot displays. Vision Res. 1979, 19, 783-793.
47. Carmody, D.P.; Nodine, C.F.; Locher, P.J. Global detection of symmetry. Percept. Mot. Skills 1977, 45, 1267-1273.
48. van der Helm, P.A.; Treder, M.S. Detection of (anti)symmetry and (anti)repetition: Perceptual mechanisms versus cognitive strategies. Vision Res. 2009, 49, 2754-2763.
49. Wolfe, J.M.; Friedman-Hill, S.R. On the role of symmetry in visual search. Psychol. Sci. 1992, 3, 194-198.
50. Kootstra, G.; Schomaker, L.R.B. Prediction of Human Eye Fixations using Symmetry. In Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci09), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, July-August 2009; Taatgen, N.A., van Rijn, H., Eds.; Cognitive Science Society: Austin, TX, USA, 2009.
51. Julesz, B. Binocular depth perception of computer generated patterns. Bell Syst. Tech. J. 1960, 39, 1125.
52. Julesz, B. Binocular disappearance of monocular symmetry. Science 1966, 153, 657-658.
53. Yakushijin, R.; Ishiguchi, A. The effect of a noise plane on discrimination of mirror symmetry in a different plane. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percep. Perf. 1999, 25, 162-173.
54. Ishiguchi, A.; Yakushijin, R. Does symmetry structure facilitate the depth separation between stereoscopically overlapped dot planes? Percept. Psychophys. 1999, 61, 151-160.
55. Cohen, E.; Zaidi, Q. Salience of mirror symmetry in natural patterns (Abstract). J. Vision 2007, 7, 970a.
56. Kastner, S.; Pinsk, M.A. Visual attention as a multilevel selection process. Cogn. Affect. Behav. Neurosci. 2004, 4, 483-500.
57. O'Connor, D.H.; Fukui, M.M.; Pinsk, M.A.; Kastner, S. Attention modulates responses in the human lateral geniculate nucleus. Nat. Neurosci. 2002, 5, 1203-1209.
58. Mack, A.; Tang, B.; Tuma, R.; Kahn, S.; Rock, I. Perceptual organization and attention. Cogn. Psychol. 1992, 24, 475-501.
59. Chan, W.Y.; Chua, F.K. Grouping with and without attention. Psychonomic Bull. Rev. 2003, 10, 932-938.
60. Lamy, D.; Segal, H.; Ruderman, L. Grouping does not require attention. Percept. Psychophys. 2006, 68, 17-31.
61. Moore, C.M.; Egeth, H. Perception without attention: Evidence of grouping under conditions of inattention. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percep. Perf. 1997, 23, 339-352.
62. Vergeer, M.; van Lier, R. Feature-based activation and suppression during binocular rivalry. Vision Res. 2010.
63. Sasaki, Y.; Vanduffel, W.; Knutsen, T.; Tyler, C.; Tootell, R. Symmetry activates extrastriate visual cortex in human and nonhuman primates. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 2005, 102, 3159-3163.
64. Olivers, C.N.L.; van der Helm, P.A. Symmetry and selective attention: A dissociation between effortless perception and serial search. Percept. Psychophys. 1998, 60, 1101-1116.
65. Nucci, M.;Wagemans, J. Goodness of regularity in dot patterns: global symmetry, local symmetry, and their interactions. Perception 2007, 36, 1305-1319.
66. Pashler, H. Coordinate frame for symmetry detection and object recognition. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percep. Perf. 1990, 16, 150-163.
67. Wenderoth, P.; Welsh, S. The effects of cuing on the detection of bilateral symmetry. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. A 1998, 51, 883-903.
68. Wenderoth, P.; Welsh, S. Effects of pattern orientation and number of symmetry axes on the detection of mirror symmetry in dot and solid patterns. Perception 1998, 27, 965-976.
69. Wenderoth, P. Monocular symmetry is neither necessary nor sufficient for the dichoptic perception of bilateral symmetry. Vision Res. 2000, 40, 2097-2100.
70. Niimi, R.; Watanabe, K.; Yokosawa, K. The role of visible persistence for perception of visual bilateral symmetry. Jpn. Psychol. Res. 2005, 47, 262-270.
71. Dakin, S.C.; Herbert, A.M. The spatial region of integration for visual symmetry detection. Proc. Roy. Soc. London Ser. B 1998, 265, 659-664.
72. Jenkins, B. Component processes in the perception of bilaterally symmetric dot textures. Percept. Psychophys. 1983, 34, 433-440.
73. Csathó, Á.; van der Vloed, G.; van der Helm, P.A. The force of symmetry revisited: symmetry-to-noise ratios regulate (a)symmetry effects. Acta Psychol. 2004, 117, 233-250.
74. van der Helm, P.A. Weber-Fechner behaviour in symmetry perception? Atte. Perce. Psycho., in press.
75. Wenderoth, P. The salience of vertical symmetry. Perception 1994, 23, 221-236.
76. Palmer, S.E.; Hemenway, K. Orientation and symmetry: effects of multiple, rotational, and near symmetries. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percep. Perf. 1978, 4, 691-702.
77. Wenderoth, P. The effects on bilateral-symmetry detection of multiple symmetry, near symmetry, and axis orientation. Perception 1997, 26, 891-904.
78. Pornstein, M.H.; Krinsky, S.J. Perception of symmetry in infancy: the salience of vertical symmetry and the perception of pattern wholes. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 1985, 39, 1-19.
79. Saarinen, J. Detection of mirror symmetry in random dot patterns at different eccentricities. Vision Res. 1988, 28, 755-759.
80. Sally, S.; Gurnsey, R. Symmetry detection across the visual field. Spatial Vision 2001, 14, 217-234.
81. Tapiovaara, M. Ideal observer and absolute efficiency of detecting mirror symmetry in random images. J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 1990, 7, 2245-2253.
82. Wenderoth, P. The role of pattern outline in bilateral symmetry detection with briefly flashed dot patterns. Spatial Vision 1995, 9, 57-77.
83. Tyler, C.W.; Hardage, L. Human Symmetry Perception and its Computational Analysis; VSP: Zeist, The Netherlands, 1996; pp. 157-172.
84. Jenkins, B. Redundancy in the perception of bilateral symmetry in dot textures. Percept. Psychophys. 1982, 32, 171-177.
85. Dakin, S.C.; Hess, R.F. The spatial mechanisms mediating symmetry perception. Vision Res. 1997, 37, 2915-2930.
86. Rainville, S.J.M.; Kingdom, F.A.A. The functional role of oriented spatial filters in the perception of mirror symmetry-psychophysics and modeling. Vision Res. 2000, 40, 2621-2644.
87. Rainville, S.J.M.; Kingdom, F.A.A. Scale invariance is driven by stimulus density. Vision Res. 2002, 42, 351-367.
88. Treder, M.S.; van der Helm, P.A. Determinants of multiple symmetry perception. Unpublished work, 2010.
89. Mancini, S.; Sally, S.L.; Gurnsey, R. Detection of symmetry and anti-symmetry. Vision Res. 2005, 45, 2145-2160.
90. Oka, S.; Victor, J.D.; Conte, M.M.; Yanagida, T. VEPs elicited by local correlations and global symmetry: characteristics and interactions. Vision Res. 2007, 47, 2212-2222.
91. Wenderoth, P. The effects of the contrast polarity of dot-pair partners on the detection of bilateral symmetry. Perception 1996, 25, 757-771.
92. Baylis, G.C.; Driver, J. Parallel computation of symmetry but not repetition within single visual shapes. Vis. Cogn. 1994, 1, 377-400.
93. Baylis, G.C.; Driver, J. Obligatory edge assignment in vision: The role of figure and part segmentation in symmetry detection. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percep. Perf. 1995, 21, 1323-1342.
94. Evans, C.S.; Wenderoth, P.; Cheng, K. Detection of bilateral symmetry in complex biological images. Perception 2000, 29, 31-42.
95. Rhodes, G.; Peters, M.; Lee, K.; Morrone, M.C.; Burr, D. Higher-level mechanisms detect facial symmetry. Proc. Roy. Soc. B 2005, 272, 1379-1384.
96. Oinonen, K.A.; Mazmanian, D. Facial symmetry detection ability changes across the menstrual cycle. Biol. Psychol. 2007, 75, 136-145.
97. Cham, T.J.; Cipolla, R. Skewed symmetry detection through local skewed symmetries. In Proceedings of the Conference on British Machine Vision, York, UK, September 1994; Volume 2.
98. Glachet, R.; Lapreset, J.T.; Dhome, M. Locating and modelling a flat symmetric object from a single perspective image. CVGIP Image Understand. 1993, 57, 219-226.
99. Zabrodsky, H.; Weinshall, D. Using Bilateral Symmetry To Improve 3D Reconstruction From Image Sequences. Comput. Vis. Image Understand. 1997, 67, 48-57.
100. Li, Y.; Pizlo, Z.; Steinman, R.M. A computational model that recovers the 3D shape of an object from a single 2D retinal representation. Vision Res. 2009, 49, 979-991.
101. Marr, D.; Nishihara, H.K. Representation and recognition of the spatial organization of three-dimensional shapes. Proc. Roy. Soc. London Ser. B 1978, 200, 269-294.
102. Vetter, T.; Poggio, T.; Bülthoff, H.H. The importance of symmetry and virtual views in three-dimensional object recognition. Curr. Biol. 1994, 4, 18-23.
103. Kontsevich, L.L. Human Symmetry Perception and its Computational Analysis; VSP: Zeist, The Netherlands, 1996; pp. 331-348.
104. Niimi, R.; Yokosawa, K. Determining the orientation of depth-rotated familiar objects. Psychonomic Bull. Rev. 2008, 15, 208-214.
105. Saunders, J.A.; Backus, B.T. Perception of surface slant from oriented textures. J. Vision 2006, 6, 882-897.
106. van der Zwan, R.; Leo, E.; Joung, W.; Latimer, C.; Wenderoth, P. Evidence that both area V1 and extrastriate visual cortex contribute to symmetry perception. Curr. Biol. 1998, 8, 889-892.
107. Dakin, S.C.; Watt, R.J. Detection of bilateral symmetry using spatial filters. Spatial Vision 1994, 8, 393-413.
108. Julesz, B.; Chang, J.J. Symmetry perception and spatial-frequency channels. Perception 1979, 8, 711-718.
109. Rainville, S.J.M.; Kingdom, F.A.A. Spatial-scale contribution to the detection of mirror symmetry in fractal noise. J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 1999, 16, 2112-2123.
110. Wilkinson, D.T.; Halligan, P.W. The effects of stimulus symmetry on landmark judgments in left and right visual fields. Neuropsychologia 2002, 40, 1045-1058.
111. Tyler, C.W.; Baseler, H.A.; Kontsevich, L.L.; Likova, L.T.; Wade, A.R.; Wandell, B.A. Predominantly extra-retinotopic cortical response to pattern symmetry. Neuroimage 2005, 24, 306-314.
112. Höfel, L.; Jacobsen, T. Electrophysiological indices of processing aesthetics: Spontaneous or intentional processes? Int. J. Psychophysiol. 2007, 65, 20-31.
113. Norcia, A.M.; Candy, T.R.; Pettet, M.W.; Vildavski, V.Y.; Tyler, C.W. Temporal dynamics of the human response to symmetry. J. Vision 2002, 2, 132-139.
114. Garner, W.R. The Processing of Information and Structure; Erlbaum: Potomac, MD, USA, 1974.
115. Palmer, S.E. Human and Machine Vision. Academic Press: New York, NY, USA, 1983; pp. 269-339.
116. van der Helm, P.A.; Leeuwenberg, E.L.J. A better approach to goodness: Reply to Wagemans (1999). Psychol. Rev. 1999, 106, 622-630.
117. Glass, L. Moiré Effect from Random Dots. Nature 1969, 223, 578-580.
118. van der Helm, P.A. Simplicity versus likelihood in visual perception: From surprisals to precisals. Psychol. Bull. 2000, 126, 770-800.
119. Dry, M.J. Using relational structure to detect symmetry: A Voronoi tessellation based model of symmetry perception. Acta Psychol. 2008, 128, 75-90.
120. Graham, N.V.S. Visual Pattern Analyzers; Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 1989.
121. Valois, K.K.D. Spatial frequency adaptation can enhance contrast sensitivity. Vision Res. 1977, 17, 1057-1065.
122. Valois, R.L.D.; Morgan, H.; Snodderly, D.M. Psychophysical studies of monkey vision. 3. Spatial luminance contrast sensitivity tests of macaque and human observers. Vision Res. 1974, 14, 75-81.
123. Valois, R.L.D.; Thorell, L.G.; Albrecht, D.G. Periodicity of striate-cortex-cell receptive fields. J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 1985, 2, 1115-1123.
124. Kovesi, P. Symmetry and Asymmetry From Local Phase. In Proceedings of AI'97: 10th Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Perth, Australia, December 1997; pp. 185-190.
125. Kovesi, P. Image Features From Phase Congruency. Videre J. Comput. Vis. Res. 1999, 1, 2-26.
126. Osorio, D. Symmetry detection by categorization of spatial phase, a model. Proc. Roy. Soc. London Ser. B 1996, 263, 105-110.
127. Gurnsey, R.; Herbert, A.M.; Kenemy, J. Bilateral symmetry embedded in noise is detected accurately only at fixation. Vision Res. 1998, 38, 3795-3803.
128. Poirier, F.J.A.M.; Wilson, H.R. A biologically plausible model of human shape symmetry perception. J. Vision 2010, 10, 1-16.
129. Latimer, C.; Joung, W.; Stevens, C. Modelling symmetry detection with back-propagation networks. Spatial Vision 1994, 8, 415-431.
130. Fukushima, K.; Kikuchi, M. Symmetry axis extraction by a neural network. Neurocomputing 2006, 69, 1827-1836.
131. Saarinen, J.; Levi, D.M. Perception of mirror symmetry reveals long-range interactions between orientation-selective cortical filters. Neuroreport 2000, 11, 2133-2138.