On the statistical independence of color and shape in object identification.

M. J. Nissen (1985) showed that color and shape are processed independently. M. A. Monheit and J. C. Johnston (1994) argued that dependence of color and shape in these experiments was reduced due to random guessing. They conducted 4 experiments in which they attempted to reduce the effect of random guessing. A strong dependence of color and shape reports was observed. In this article the effects that random guessing can have on statistical (in)dependence are analyzed. The authors argue that Monheit and Johnston's analysis is incorrect and inconsistent with the data they report and that random guessing can be the cause of statistical dependence of color and shape reports.