The role of object and spatial layout in scene integration

Integrating multiple scenes is necessary to represent the space with limited human visual field. Previous literatures have shown that people use overlapping views to form an integrated scene representation. However, it remains unclear what specific visual information in the overlapping view plays a critical role. Here, we specifically tested whether object or spatial layout information in the overlapping view contributes to scene integration. Experiment 1 tested the overlap effect when both object and spatial layout information is present in the overlapping views of indoor scenes. Experiment 2 tested how the overlap effect changes when only object or spatial layout information is available in the overlapping view. The experiments consisted of two phases: Study Phase displayed pairs of panoramic videos containing overlapping views or not; Test Phase displayed pairs of snapshots from the studied videos. In both phases, participants determined whether the pair is from the same or different location. In Experiment 1 (N = 18), the Study and Test Phase respectively showed significant overlap effect, replicating previous results. In Experiment 2 (N = 32), we found a significant overlap effect in object-only condition but not in spatial layout-only condition during the Study Phase, suggesting that overlapping objects alone can provide cues for perceptual integration of scenes, but not spatial layout alone. No overlap effect was observed in the Test Phase. These results suggest that the use of overlap cues in scene integration depends on the stage of scene integration as well as the type of information available in the overlapping view. Specifically, the object information may be used to integrate immediate scene representations during perception, but both object and spatial layout information may be necessary to form more persistent, long-term representations of integrated scenes.