title: Figure-ground organization in different phases of the perceptual alternation phenomenon.
abstract: Two experiments on figure-ground organization were designed to examine whether the regions of an ambiguous stimulus perceived as "figure" vary as a function of regional area and experience with the stimulus. In Exp. 1 the perceived duration of each interpretation was recorded during continuous viewing for 10 subjects who had been trained until both percepts appeared with statistical regularity (stationary phase). In Exp. 2 the first interpretation reported by 172 naive observers after a few seconds of pattern exposure was recorded. The well-known tendency to interpret smaller regions as figure was noted in Exp. 2 whereas the results of Exp. 1 suggested equal probability of the percepts. Over-all results suggest that alternation is learned during the transient or "early" phase of perception, with some stimulus features and cultural factors influencing the figure-ground organization. During the stationary or late phase of perception the subject is well practiced and the alternating of interpretations becomes largely automatic.
authors.affiliation: INFM-Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, Italy. tuccio@genova.infn.it
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Tuccio
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009903:Optical Illusions; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011601:Psychophysics