Journal article
Grounding the figure: Surface attachment influences figure-ground organization
Psychonomic bulletin & review, Vol.13(4), pp.563-569
08/2006
DOI: 10.3758/BF03193963
PMID: 17201352
Abstract
We investigated whether the lower region effect on figure-ground organization (Vecera, Vogel, & Woodman, 2002) would generalize to contextual depth planes in vertical orientations, as is predicted by a theoretical analysis based on the ecological statistics of edges arising from objects that are attached to surfaces of support. Observers viewed left/right ambiguous figure-ground displays that occluded middle sections of four types of contextual inducers: two types of attached, receding, vertical planes (walls) that used linear perspective and/or texture gradients to induce perceived depth and two types of similar trapezoidal control figures that used either uniform color or random texture to reduce or eliminate perceived depth. The results showed a reliable bias toward seeing as “figure” the side of the figure-ground display that was attached to the receding depth plane, but no such bias for the corresponding side in either of the control conditions. The results are interpreted as being consistent with the attachment hypothesis that the lower region cue to figure-ground organization results from ecological biases in edge interpretation that arise when objects are attached to supporting surfaces in the terrestrial gravitational field.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Grounding the figure: Surface attachment influences figure-ground organization
- Creators
- Shaun Vecera - Department of Psychology University of Iowa E11 Seashore Hall Iowa City 52242-1407 IAStephen Palmer - Department of Psychology University of California 94720-1650 Berkeley CA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Psychonomic bulletin & review, Vol.13(4), pp.563-569
- Publisher
- Springer-Verlag; New York
- DOI
- 10.3758/BF03193963
- PMID
- 17201352
- ISSN
- 1069-9384
- eISSN
- 1531-5320
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 08/2006
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984066147802771
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