Lower region: A new cue for figure-ground assignment.

Abstract

Figure– ground assignment is an important visual process; humans recognize, attend to, and act on figures, not backgrounds. There are many visual cues for figure– ground assignment. A new cue to figure– ground assignment, called lower region, is presented: Regions in the lower portion of a stimulus array appear more figurelike than regions in the upper portion of the display. This phenomenon was explored, and it was demonstrated that the lower-region preference is not influenced by contrast, eye movements, or voluntary spatial attention. It was found that the lower region is defined relative to the stimulus display, linking the lower-region preference to pictorial depth perception cues. The results are discussed in terms of the environmental regularities that this new figure– ground cue may reflect. Figure– ground assignment is a well-known psychological phenomenon; illustrations of figure– ground assignment appear in most introductory psychology textbooks, and most psychology students recognize these examples. Figure– ground assignment is the process by which the visual system organizes a visual scene into figures (occluding, foreground regions) and grounds (occluded regions) following the initial formation of those regions (Palmer & Rock, 1994). Determining which regions are figures and which are grounds is an important visual process because everyday visual scenes contain multiple objects that often overlap and partially occlude one another. Figure– ground processes have been studied most extensively by perceptual and cognitive scientists (see Palmer, 1999; Pomerantz & Kubovy, 1986; Rock, 1983, 1995; and Rock & Palmer, 1990), but developmental studies have also investigated the perception of occluded objects (e.g., Spelke, 1990). Also, social psychologists have demonstrated that figure– ground processes are influenced by motivational factors; reward and punishment appear to influence figure– ground separation (Schafer & Murphy, 1943). Figure– ground assignment is a fundamental visual process because figural regions form the basis of a wide range of behavior; humans are more likely to recognize, attend to, and act upon foreground figures rather than backgrounds. Thus, the study of figure-ground assignment has a central role in explaining higher-level visual and visuomotor behavior. There are several consequences, or effects, of figure– ground assignment. Rubin (1915/1958), who was the first Gestalt psychologist to study figure– ground assignment rigorously, noted that figures seem more salient than grounds and that figures have a