People can relatively easily report summary properties for ensembles of objects, suggesting that this information can enrich visual experience and increase the efficiency of perceptual processing. Here, we ask whether the ability to judge diversity within object arrays improves with experience. We surmised that ensemble judgments would be more accurate for commonly experienced objects, and perhaps even more for objects of expertise like faces. We also expected improvements in ensemble processing with practice with a novel category, and perhaps even more with repeated experience with specific exemplars. We compared the effect of experience on diversity judgments for arrays of objects, with participants being tested with either a small number of repeated exemplars or with a large number of exemplars from the same object category. To explore the role of more prolonged experience, we tested participants with completely novel objects (random blobs), with objects familiar at the category level (cars), and with objects with which observers are experts at subordinate-level recognition (faces). For objects that are novel, participants showed evidence of improved ability to distribute attention. In contrast, for object categories with long-term experience, i.e., faces and cars, performance improved during the experiment but not necessarily due to improved ensemble processing. Practice with specific exemplars did not result in better diversity judgments for all object categories. Considered together, these results suggest that ensemble processing improves with experience. However, experience operates rapidly, the role of experience does not rely on exemplar-level knowledge and may not benefit from subordinate-level expertise.

人们可以相对容易地报告对象集合的摘要属性，表明此信息可以丰富视觉体验并提高感知处理的效率。在这里，我们要问判断对象数组内多样性的能力是否随着经验的提高而提高。我们推测，对于通常经验的对象，整体判断可能更准确，对于像面孔这样的专业对象，可能甚至更准确。我们还期望通过使用新颖类别的练习来改善合奏处理，并且可能在反复使用特定示例的情况下甚至会有所改善。我们比较了经验对一组对象的多样性判断的影响，参与者被测试时使用的是少量重复样本或来自同一对象类别的大量样本。为了探索更长时间的体验的作用，我们用完全新颖的对象（随机斑点），熟悉类别级别的对象（汽车）以及观察者是下级级别的专家的对象（面部）对参与者进行了测试。对于新颖的物体，参与者显示出提高分配注意力的能力的证据。相反，对于具有长期经验的对象类别（例如，面孔和汽车），在实验过程中性能有所提高，但不一定是由于改进了整体处理。使用特定示例进行练习并不能为所有对象类别带来更好的多样性判断。综合考虑，这些结果表明合奏处理随经验而改善。但是，经验会迅速发展，