Ma. Peterson et Bs. Gibson, MUST FIGURE-GROUND ORGANIZATION PRECEDE OBJECT RECOGNITION - AN ASSUMPTION IN PERIL, Psychological science, 5(5), 1994, pp. 253-259
The assumption that figure-ground segmentation must precede object or
shape recognition has been central to theories of visual perception. W
e showed that assumption to be incorrect in an experiment in which obs
ervers reported the first perceived figure-ground organization of brie
fly exposed stimuli depicting two regions sharing a figure-ground bord
er. We manipulated the symmetry of the two regions and their orientati
on-dependent denotivity (roughly, their meaningfulness), and measured
how each of these variables influenced figure-ground reports when the
stimuli were exposed for 14, 28, 57, 86, or 100 ms, and followed immed
iately by a mask. Influences on figure-ground organization from both s
ymmetry and orientation-dependent object recognition processes were fo
und; both were observed first in the 28-ms condition. Object recogniti
on inputs did not dominate symmetry inputs. We suggest that object rec
ognition processes may operate simultaneously on both sides of edges d
etected before figure-ground relationships are determined.