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Abstract

The visual recognition of novel objects is influenced by the degree of deviation from studied viewing direction, especially when their geometric structure cannot be decomposed into view-invariant components. In a natural context, changes in the appearance of an object are often caused by changes in the observer's vantage point. Moreover, these changes are almost always apparent to the observer and could in principle be used in the recognition process. We investigated the use of implicit viewer vantage point information by constructing a highly realistic virtual living room which was rich in visual depth information and in which subjects could make simulated movements. On a pedestal in the middle of the room, we placed various 3D geometrical objects. After an initial exploratory period, in which subjects familiarised themselves with the room, training and recognition tests were conducted. In long-term encoding and recognition tasks we observed an improvement in performance when testing occurred with the room visible than when testing occurred without the room. To test if this benefit derives from the room providing implicit vantage-point information we repeated the object identification task while randomly perturbing the orientation of the room with respect to the objects. We found that performance in this case was poorer in comparison to when no room was present. These results indicate that in the recognition of novel objects, people can make use of implicit information specifying where they are and where they are looking.