We think of the world around us as divided into physical objects like toasters and daisies, rather than solely as a smear of properties like yellow and smooth. How do we single out these objects? One theory of object concepts uses part‐of relations and relations of connectedness. According to this proposal, an object is a connected spatial item of maximal extent: Any other connected item that overlaps (i.e., shares a part with) the object must be a part of that object. (...) This article reports four experiments that test this proposal. Participants see descriptions or diagrams of spatial items that vary across trials in their relative positions. In separate experiments, participants decide whether the items are physical objects, whether they are wholes, or how many objects are present. All experiments find support for connectedness as a contributor to object status, but they find little support for maximality. The results suggest that maximality is not a necessary feature of wholes or of objects. (shrink)

Article Authors Metrics Comments Media Coverage Abstract Author Summary Introduction Results Discussion Supporting information Acknowledgments Author Contributions References Reader Comments (0) Media Coverage (0) Figures Abstract During language processing, humans form complex embedded representations from sequential inputs. Here, we ask whether a “geometrical language” with recursive embedding also underlies the human ability to encode sequences of spatial locations. We introduce a novel paradigm in which subjects are exposed to a sequence of spatial locations on an octagon, and are asked to (...) predict future locations. The sequences vary in complexity according to a well-defined language comprising elementary primitives and recursive rules. A detailed analysis of error patterns indicates that primitives of symmetry and rotation are spontaneously detected and used by adults, preschoolers, and adult members of an indigene group in the Amazon, the Munduruku, who have a restricted numerical and geometrical lexicon and limited access to schooling. Furthermore, subjects readily combine these geometrical primitives into hierarchically organized expressions. By evaluating a large set of such combinations, we obtained a first view of the language needed to account for the representation of visuospatial sequences in humans, and conclude that they encode visuospatial sequences by minimizing the complexity of the structured expressions that capture them. (shrink)