Title: Memory and Learning in Figure-Ground
Perception
Mary A. Peterson
Abstract:
It has long been
thought that figure and ground assignment precedes access to shape and object
memories, and therefore that past experience cannot affect the determination of
what is figure and what is ground. I will briefly review a series of
experiments indicating that this traditional assumption is incorrect. Instead,
memories of known shapes (objects) are accessed sufficiently early in the
course of perceptual processing to affect figure and ground assignment. I will
present a competitive model that accounts both for these results and for why
grounds are perceived to be shapeless and I will present experiments testing
predictions from the model and .investigating how
much experience with a novel shape is sufficient for its memory to influence
figure assignment. In closing, I will
discuss the possibility that these effects are mediated by partial
configurations in V4.