A unified model of illusory and occluded contour interpolation.
Models of contour interpolation have been proposed for illusory contour interpolation but seldom for interpolation of occluded contours. The identity hypothesis (Kellman & Loukides, 1987; Kellman & Shipley, 1991) posits that an early interpolation mechanism is shared by interpolated contours that are ultimately perceived as either illusory or occluded. Here we propose a model of such a unified interpolation mechanism for illusory and occluded contours, building on the framework established in Heitger, von der Heydt, Peterhans, Rosenthaler, and Kubler (1998). We show that a single, neurally plausible mechanism that is consistent with the identity hypothesis also generates contour interpolations in agreement with perception for cases of transparency, self-splitting objects, interpolation with mixed boundary assignment, and "quasimodal" interpolations. Limiting cases for this local, feed-forward approach are presented, demonstrating that both early, local interpolation mechanisms and non-local scene constraints are necessary for describing the perception of interpolated contours.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States. donkalar@ucla.edu
Donald J
DJ
Kalar
Patrick
P
Garrigan
Thomas D
TD
Wickens
James D
JD
Hilger
Philip J
PJ
Kellman
D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009903:Optical Illusions; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D014796:Visual Perception