What’s Feature Integration Theory?

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Feature integration theory is a psychological theory that describes how a person brings together the separate features of an object to create a more complete perception of said object. This theory focuses in particular on the sense of sight and how the eyes absorb information in order to somehow “experience” the object being seen. In addition to perception, feature integration theory also discusses the importance of attention in making a correct view of the observed object.

The development of feature integration theory is largely credited to Garry Gelade and Anne Treisman, who co-wrote an academic paper titled “A Feature-Integration Theory of Attention” in the 1980s. In the paper, Treisman and Gelade cited several past experiments that revolve around “visual search,” or the process in which the individual, for example, distinguishes an object’s color and shape from other objects. Some experiments, on the other hand, involved “texture segregation” to distinguish the object from its background, while other experiments explored the person’s ability to spatially locate the object. In this way, feature integration theory suggests that the attributes of a given object are processed sequentially, especially in situations where the person needs to notice several features to distinguish the object correctly. For example, if a person searches in a crowd for a male friend who has shoulder-length hair, the first step is to look for people who have shoulder-length hair and progress into the distinguishing characteristics of the friend who will single him out.

In general, feature integration theory describes two primary stages of attention: the preattentive and focused attention stages. In the first stage of pre-attention, the person instinctively and automatically focuses on a distinguishing feature of an object, such as color and orientation. The person really doesn’t need to make a conscious effort to think at this stage. For example, a person can easily detect an oblique line between horizontal lines on a piece of paper. In the focused attention stage, the person takes all the characteristics of the object and combines them all to give a correct perception of the object. This is especially done in situations where the object doesn’t immediately stand out among other objects, such as a red circle among other randomly colored red and blue circles and squares.

Training courses and practices that apply feature integration theory can help a person improve his abstract reasoning skills and attention. They can also help him be more aware and attentive to his surroundings. Teachers can also apply theory to help students remember lessons by using a different colored chalk or marker for important keywords.

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