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How Configural Is The Configural Superiority Effect? A Neuroimaging Investigation Of Emergent Features In Visual Cortex, Olivia Michelle Fox

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The perception of a visual stimulus is dependent not only upon local features, but also on the arrangement of those features. When stimulus features are perceptually well organized, a global configuration with a high degree of salience emerges from the interactions between these features, often referred to as emergent features. Emergent features can be demonstrated in the Configural Superiority Effect (CSE): presenting a stimulus within an organized context relative to its presentation in a disarranged one results in better performance. Prior neuroimaging work on the perception of emergent features regards the CSE as an "all or none" phenomenon, focusing on …