Abstract
In previous research, replicated here, we found that some object recognition processes influence figure-ground organization. We have proposed that these object recognition processes operate on edges (or contours)detected early in visual processing, rather than on regions. Consistent with this proposal, influences from object recognition on figure-ground organization were previously observed in both pictures and stereograms depicting regions of different luminance, but not in randomdot stereograms, where edges arise late in processing (Peterson & Gibson, 1993). In the present experiments, we examined whether or not two other types of contours—outlines and subjective contours—enable object recognition influences on figure-ground organization. For both types of contours we observed a pattern of effects similar to that originally obtained with luminance edges. The results of these experiments are valuable for distinguishing between alternative views of the mechanisms mediating object recognition influences on figure-ground organization. In addition, in both Experiments 1 and 2, fixated regions were seen as figure longer than nonfixated regions, suggesting that fixation location must be included among the variables relevant to figure-ground organization.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Barrow, H. G., &Tennenbaum, J. M. (1981). Interpreting line drawings as three-dimensional surfaces.Artificial Intelligence,17, 75–116.
Biederman, I. (1987). Recognition-by-components: A theory of human image understanding.Psychological Review,94, 115–147.
Clowes, M. B. (1971). On seeing things.Artificial Intelligence,2, 79–116.
Cornwell, H. G. (1964). Effect of training on figure-ground organization.Journal of Experimental Psychology,68, 108–109.
Dutton, M. B., &Traill, P. M. (1933). A repetition of Rubin’s figure-ground experiment.British Journal of Psychology,23, 389–400.
Ehrenstein, W. (1987). Modifications of the brightness phenomenon of L. Hermann (A. Hogg, Trans.). In S. Petry & G. Meyer (Eds.),The perception of illusory contours (pp. 35–40). New York: Springer-Verlag. (Originally published in 1941 as Über Abwandlungen der L. Hermannschen Helligkeitserscheinung. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 150, 83-91)
Epstein, W., &DeShazo, D. (1960). Recency as a function of perceptual oscillation.American Journal of Psychology,74, 215–223.
Gibson, B. S., &Peterson, M. A. (1994). Does orientation-independent object recognition precede orientation-dependent recognition? Evidence from a cuing paradigm.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,20, 299–316.
Ginsburg, A. (1975). Is the illusory triangle physical or imaginary?Nature,257, 219–220.
Girgus, J. J., Rock, I., &Egatz, R. (1977). The effect of knowledge of reversibility on the reversibility of ambiguous figures.Perception & Psychophysics,22, 550–556.
Gottschaldt, K. (1929). Gestalt factors and repetition. In W. D. Ellis (Ed.),A source book of Gestalt psychology (pp. 109–135). London: Kegen Paul, Trench, Trubner.
Grossberg, S., &Mingolla, E. (1985). Neural dynamics of perceptual grouping: Textures, boundaries, and emergent segmentations.Perception & Psychophysics,38, 141–171.
Gurnsey, R., Humphrey, G. K., &Kapitan, P. (1992). Parallel discrimination of subjective contours defined by offset gratings.Perception & Psychophysics,52, 263–276.
Halverson, J. (1992). The first pictures: Perceptual foundations of Paleolithic art.Perception,21, 389–404.
Hebb, D. O. (1949).The organization of behavior. New York: Wiley.
Hochberg, J. (1968).Perception. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Hochberg, J. (1971). Perception I: Color and shape. In J.W. Kling and L. A. Riggs (Eds.),Woodworth and Schlossberg’s Experimental psychology (3rd ed., pp. 395–474). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Hochberg, J. (1972). The representation of things and people. In E. H. Gombrich, J. Hochberg, & M. Black (Eds.),Art, perception, and reality (pp. 47–94). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hochberg, J. (1978). Art and perception. In E. C. Carterette & M. P. Friedman (Eds.),Handbook of perception: Vol. X. Perceptual ecology (pp. 223–258). New York: Academic Press.
Hochberg, J., &Peterson, M. A. (1987). Piecemeal organization and cognitive components in object perception: Perceptually coupled responses to moving objects.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,116, 370–380.
Hochberg, J., &Peterson, M. A. (1993). Mental representations of occluded objects: Sequential disclosure and intentional construal.Giornale Italiano di Psicologia,20, 805–820.
Hoffman, D. D., &Richards, W. A. (1985). Parts of recognition. In S. Pinker (Ed.),Visual cognition (pp. 65–96). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Jenkins, B., &Ross, J. (1977). McCullough effect depends on perceived organization.Perception,6, 399–400.
Jolicoeur, P. (1985). The time to name disoriented objects.Memory & Cognition,13, 289–303.
Jolicoeur, P. (1988). Mental rotation and the identification of disoriented objects.Canadian Journal of Psychology,42, 461–478.
Kanizsa, G. (1976). Subjective contours.Scientific American,235(4), 48–52.
Kanizsa, G. (1979).Organization in vision. New York: Praeger.
Kennedy, J. M. (1974).A psychology of picture perception. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kennedy, J. M. (1988). Line endings and subjective contours.Spatial Vision,3, 151–158.
Kennedy, J. M., &Silver, J. (1974). The surrogate functions of lines in visual perception: Evidence from antipodal rock and cave artwork sources.Perception,3, 313–322.
Kosslyn, S. M. (1987). Seeing and imagining in the cerebral hemispheres: A computational approach.Psychological Review,94, 148–175.
Lowe, D. (1985).Perceptual organization and visual recognition. Boston: Kluwer.
Marr, D. (1982).Vision. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.
Marr, D., &Hildreth, E. (1980). Theory of edge detection.Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Series B,207, 187–217.
Marr, D., &Nishihara, H. K. (1978). Representation and recognition of the spatial organization of three-dimensional shapes.Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Series B,200, 269–294.
McClelland, J. L., &Rumelhart, D. E. (1981). An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: Part 1. An account of the basic findings.Psychological Review,88, 375–407.
Nakayama, K., Shimojo, S., &Silverman, G. H. (1989). Stereoscopic depth: Its relation to image segmentation, grouping, and the recognition of occluded objects.Perception,18, 55–68.
Paradiso, M. A., Shimojo, S., &Nakayama, K. (1989). Subjective contours, tilt aftereffects, and visual cortical organization.Vision Research,29, 1205–1213.
Pastore, N. (1971).Selective history of theories of visual perception, 1650-1950. New York: Oxford University Press.
Peterhans, E., &von der Heydt, R. (1989). Mechanisms of contour perception in monkey visual cortex: II. Contours bridging gaps.Journal of Neuroscience,9, 1749–1763.
Peterson, M. A. (1986). Illusory concomitant motion in ambiguous stereograms: Evidence for nonstimulus contributions to perceptual organization.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,12, 50–60.
Peterson, M. A. (1994). Object recognition processes can and do operate before figure-ground organization.Current Directions in Psychological Science,3, 105–111.
Peterson, M. A., &Gibson, B. S. (1991a). Directing spatial attention within an object: Altering the functional equivalence of structural descriptions.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,17, 170–182.
Peterson, M. A., &Gibson, B. S. (1991b). The initial identification of figure-ground relationships: Contributions from shape recognition processes.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,29, 199–202.
Peterson, M. A., &Gibson, B. S. (1993). Shape recognition contributions to figure-ground organization in three-dimensional displays.Cognitive Psychology,25, 383–429.
Peterson, M. A., & Gibson, B. S. (in press). Must figure-ground organization precede shape recognition? An assumption in peril.Psychological Science.
Peterson, M. A., Harvey, E. M., &Weidenbacher, H. J. (1991). Shape recognition contributions to figure-ground reversal: Which route counts?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,17, 1075–1089.
Peterson, M. A., &Hochberg, J. (1983). Opposed-set measurement procedure: A quantitative analysis of the role of local cues and intention in form perception.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,9, 183–193.
Peterson, M. A., &Hochberg, J. (1989). Necessary considerations for a theory of form perception: A theoretical and empirical reply to Boselie and Leeuwenberg (1986).Perception,18, 105–119.
Petry, S., Harbeck, A., Conway, J., &Levey, J. (1983). Stimulus determinants of brightness and distinctness of subjective contours.Perception & Psychophysics,34, 169–174.
Reynolds, R. I. (1981). Perception of an illusory contour as a function of processing time.Perception,10, 107–115.
Rock, I. (1962). A neglected aspect of the problem of recall: The Hoffding function. In J. M. Scher (Ed.),Theories of the mind. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.
Rock, I. (1975).An introduction to perception. New York: MacMillan.
Rock, I. (1983).The logic of perception. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Bradford Books.
Rock, I., &Anson, R. (1979). Illusory contours as the solution to a problem.Perception,8, 665–681.
Rock, I., &DiVita, J. (1987). A case of viewer-centered object perception.Cognitive Psychology,19, 280–293.
Rock, I., &Fleck, F. (1950). A re-examination of the effects of monetary reward and punishment on figure-ground perception.Journal of Experimental Psychology,40, 766–776.
Rock, I., &Kremen, I. (1957). A re-examination of Rubin’s figural aftereffect.Journal of Experimental Psychology,53, 23–30.
Rock, I., &Mitchener, K. (1992). Further evidence of failure of reversal of ambiguous figures by uninformed subjects.Perception,21, 39–45.
Rubin, E. (1958). Figure and ground. In D. C. Beardslee & M. Wertheimer (Eds. & Trans.),Readings in perception (pp. 194–203). New York: Van Nostrand. (Original work published 1915)
Schafer, R., &Murphy, G. (1943). The role of autism in a visual figure-ground relationship.Journal of Experimental Psychology,32, 335–343.
Schumann, F. (1987). Contributions to the analysis of visual perception—first paper: Some observations on the combination of visual impressions into units (A. Hogg, Trans.). In S. Petry & G. Meyer (Eds.),The perception of illusory contours (pp. 21–34). New York: Springer-Verlag. (Original work published 1900)
Sejnowski, T. J., &Hinton, G. E. (1987). Separating figure from ground with a Boltzman machine. In M. Arbib & D. Hanson (Eds.),Vision, brain and cooperative computation (pp. 703–724). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Smith, A., &Over, R. (1975). Tilt aftereffects with subjective contours.Nature,257, 581–582.
Smith, D., &Hochberg, J. (1954). The effects of “punishment” (electric shock) on figure-ground perception.Journal of Psychology,37, 83–87.
Tarr, M. J., &Pinker, S. (1989). Mental rotation and orientationdependence in shape recognition.Cognitive Psychology,21, 233–282.
von der Heydt, R., &Peterhans, E. (1989). Mechanisms of contour in shape recognition.Cognitive Psychology,21, 233–282.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant BNS-9009100 to M.A.P. and by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. B.S.G.’s participation in writing this article was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from NIMH (T32-MH18215) to Johns Hopkins
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Peterson, M.A., Gibson, B.S. Object recognition contributions to figure-ground organization: Operations on outlines and subjective contours. Perception & Psychophysics 56, 551–564 (1994). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206951
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206951