We think of the world around us as divided into physical objects like toasters and daisies, rather than solely as a smear of properties like yellow and smooth. How do we single out these objects? One theory of object concepts uses part‐of relations and relations of connectedness. According to this proposal, an object is a connected spatial item of maximal extent: Any other connected item that overlaps (i.e., shares a part with) the object must be a part of that object. This article reports four experiments that test this proposal. Participants see descriptions or diagrams of spatial items that vary across trials in their relative positions. In separate experiments, participants decide whether the items are physical objects, whether they are wholes, or how many objects are present. All experiments find support for connectedness as a contributor to object status, but they find little support for maximality. The results suggest that maximality is not a necessary feature of wholes or of objects.

中文翻译：

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可能的对象：个体化的拓扑方法

我们认为我们周围的世界分为烤面包机和雏菊等物理对象，而不仅仅是黄色和光滑等特性的涂抹。我们如何挑选出这些对象？对象概念的一种理论使用部分关系和连通性关系。根据该提议，对象是最大范围的连接空间项：与对象重叠（即，与其共享一部分）的任何其他连接项必须是该对象的一部分。本文报告了测试该提议的四个实验。参与者会看到空间项目的描述或图表，这些项目在其相对位置的试验中有所不同。在单独的实验中，参与者决定这些物品是否是物理对象，它们是否是整体，或者存在多少对象。所有的实验都支持连通性作为对象状态的贡献者，但他们几乎没有发现对最大化的支持。结果表明，最大化不是整体或对象的必要特征。