In this review we consider the logic and the evidence relating to the issue
of dynamic grouping in human vision. Dynamic grouping is required when the
visual system is creating novel descriptions, either because it is dealing
with novel stimuli or it is providing information for novel purposes. In s
uch cases, dynamic grouping provides a mechanism for discovering regulariti
es in the data. We consider a number of examples, including grouping of Vis
ual information into surface descriptions and contour descriptions. The mai
n issues that arise concern the configurability of the process and the effe
cts of the propagation of local configurations. We then turn to the complex
issue of visual search. Visual search allows the experimenter to establish
something of the nature of pre-attentive visual descriptions and how these
differ from attentive descriptions. We describe the basic results I r of v
isual search experiments in terms of the type of grouping involved. Finally
, we consider the hypothesis that dynamic grouping is signalled by neuronal
synchrony.