A new "tilt" illusion reveals the relation between border ownership and border binding

Abstract

The "association field" models of contour detection predict specific spatial conditions for linking or grouping neighboring elements into smooth contours. We previously suggested that the "association field" model may account for perceptual binding of near-collinear luminance edges of same contrast polarity and their consequent unification into a unique contrast border with illusory tilt. This approach is now developed into a new version of the tilt illusion, the seesaw illusion, in which the contrast border is perceived as inverting concave-convex illusory curvature when background luminance is inverted, indicating that contrast polarity must be incorporated into the notion of "association field" to account for the seesaw illusion. We found that although tile-edge segmentation into alternating black-white segments produces conflicting local tilts, the illusion remains, up to 16 arcmin edge distance. This occurs at extreme background luminance for long segments (where only congruent edge segments of higher contrast bind, the others being perceptually assimilated into the background surface) and, when segments are too short for their orientation to be detected, at all background luminance values except that equidistant from black and white stripes. Our findings provide further confirmation that these are striking border ownership phenomena, demonstrating that figure/ground organization precedes perceptual binding of edges through association fields.