Discriminability of stimuli varying in physical and retinal orientation

Fred Attneave, Richard K. Olson
1967 Journal of Experimental Psychology  
In 2 discrimination reaction-time experiments, adult human Ss responded faster to horizontal and vertical stimuli (lines or rectangles) than to stimuli tilted 45° right and left. When S viewed the stimuli with his head tilted 45°, so that physical and retinal orientation were in opposition, it was on the physical rather than the retinal horizontals and verticals that performance was superior. In another experiment head position was changed 45° after a period of learning. Ss required to give the
more » ... same responses to the same physical orientations did much better on the transfer task than those required to give the same responses to the same retinal orientations. The latter were not significantly superior to a pure transposition group for whom the S-R relationships were shifted both physically and retinally.
doi:10.1037/h0024557 fatcat:7apsqoq3zjdfndcqekselkyjha