title: Perceived three-dimensional shape toggles perceived glow.
abstract: Most surfaces reflect light from external sources, but others emit light: they glow. Glowing surfaces are often a sign of an important feature of the environment, such as a heat source or a bioluminescent life form, but we know little about how the human visual system identifies them. Previous work has shown that luminance and luminance gradients are important in glow perception [1,2]. While a link between glow and shape has been suggested in the literature [3], there has been no systematic investigation of this relationship. Here we show that perceived three-dimensional shape plays a decisive role in glow perception; vivid percepts of glow can be toggled on and off, simply by changing cues to three-dimensional shape while holding other image features constant.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada; Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA. Electronic address: minjung.kim@nyu.edu.
authors.forename: Minjung
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada.
authors.forename: Laurie M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Wilcox
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada.
authors.forename: Richard F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Murray
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005556:Form Perception; D008027:Light; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*