Differing views on views: comments on Biederman and Bar (1999).
In a recent article, Biederman and Bar (1999) present several results to support “a class of theories [that] assumes that non-accidental properties (NAPS) might be exploited so that even novel objects can be recognized under depth rotation” — specifically, theories based on ‘geons’ (Biederman, 1987 and Hummel & Biederman, 1992). Biederman and Bar likewise present results that they believe to be inconsistent with a “class of theories … based on generalization from templates specified by metric properties” — specifically, ‘view-based’ or ‘image-based’ theories (Bricolo, Poggio & Logothetis, 1997,Poggio & Edelman, 1990, Tarr & Bülthoff, 1995 and Tarr & Bülthoff, 1998). Because our disagreements with Biederman's theoretical approach have been detailed in many other forums (Hayward & Tarr, 1997, Tarr & Bülthoff, 1995 and Tarr & Bülthoff, 1998) we do not feel it is necessary to respond in kind. We do feel, however, that it is necessary to address a series of straightforwardly incorrect claims made by Biederman and Bar regarding our published results. Below we enumerate these claims, and our replies to each2: