Perceiving ensemble statistics of novel image sets

Perception, representation, and memory of ensemble statistics has attracted growing interest. Studies found that, at different abstraction levels, the brain represents similar items as unified percepts. We found that global ensemble perception is automatic and unconscious, affecting later perceptual judgments regarding individual member items. Implicit effects of set mean and range for low-level feature ensembles (size, orientation, brightness) were replicated for high-level category objects. This similarity suggests that analogous mechanisms underlie these extreme levels of abstraction. Here, we bridge the span between visual features and semantic object categories using the identical implicit perception experimental paradigm for intermediate novel visual-shape categories, constructing ensemble exemplars by introducing systematic variations of a central category base or ancestor. In five experiments, with different item variability, we test automatic representation of ensemble category characteristics and its effect on a subsequent memory task. Results show that observer representation of ensembles includes the group’s central shape, category ancestor (progenitor), or group mean. Observers also easily reject memory of shapes belonging to different categories, i.e. originating from different ancestors. We conclude that complex categories, like simple visual form ensembles, are represented in terms of statistics including a central object, as well as category boundaries. We refer to the model proposed by Benna and Fusi (bioRxiv 624239, 2019) that memory representation is compressed when related elements are represented by identifying their ancestor and each one’s difference from it. We suggest that ensemble mean perception, like category prototype extraction, might reflect employment at different representation levels of an essential, general representation mechanism.