Navon figure

A Navon figure is made of a larger recognisable shape, such as a letter, composed of copies of a smaller different shape. Navon figures are used in tests of visual neglect.^[1] David Navon's research demonstrated that global features are perceived more quickly than local features.^[2] Jules Davidoff also performed research, but in a remote culture, finding opposite results; the participants more readily identified the local features.^[3] Patients with simultanagnosia have difficulty identifying global features, and when presented with a Navon figure will identify only the local features.^[4] A 2010 study comparing global-local processing in different races,^[5] found that East Asians demonstrated significantly stronger global processing than Caucasians.

Example

A letter T (global) composed of repeat copies of the letter S (local).

 SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
 SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
 SS        SSSSS        SS
           SSSSS
           SSSSS
           SSSSS
           SSSSS
           SSSSS
           SSSSS
          SSSSSSS
       SSSSSSSSSSSSS

The Navon effect

Reading Navon figures has been found to affect a range of tasks. It has been shown that just 5 minutes reading out the small letters of Navon figures has a detrimental effect on face recognition.^[6][7] The size of the Navon effect has been found to be influenced by the properties of the image.^[8] The effect is short lived (lasting less than a couple of minutes).^[9]

The Navon effect has also been observed in other tasks such as golf putting where reading the small Navon letters leads to poorer putting performance.^[10]

See also

• ASCII art