LOCAL AND GLOBAL FACTORS IN VISUAL OCCLUSION

Although interest in the phenomenon of visual occulsion is of very lon g standing, only a small number of experimental studies have been repo rted, and available theories fail to give satisfactory explanations of the data. In this paper the efficacy of local factors in organising t he perception of globally regular occlusion patterns is explored. Thre e experiments are reported in which the relative contribution of local and global factors to the salience of percepts is investigated. It is demonstrated that local factors play a very important role in the per ception of these kinds of patterns.