Salvagio Elizabeth, Cacciamani Laura, Peterson Mary A
Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, 1503 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2012 Jul;74(5):964-78. doi: 10.3758/s13414-012-0280-5.
Figure-ground segregation is modeled as inhibitory competition between objects that might be perceived on opposite sides of borders. The winner is the figure; the loser is suppressed, and its location is perceived as shapeless ground. Evidence of ground suppression would support inhibitory competition models and would contribute to explaining why grounds are shapeless near borders shared with figures, yet such evidence is scarce. We manipulated whether competition from potential objects on the ground side of figures was high (i.e., portions of familiar objects were potentially present there) or low (novel objects were potentially present). We predicted that greater competition would produce more ground suppression. The results of two experiments in which suppression was assessed via judgments of the orientation of target bars confirmed this prediction; a third experiment showed that ground suppression is short-lived. Our findings support inhibitory competition models of figure assignment, in particular, and models of visual perception entailing feedback, in general.
图形-背景分离被建模为可能在边界两侧被感知的物体之间的抑制性竞争。胜者是图形；败者被抑制，其位置被感知为无形状的背景。背景抑制的证据将支持抑制性竞争模型，并有助于解释为什么背景在与图形共享的边界附近是无形状的，但此类证据很少。我们操纵了图形地面一侧潜在物体的竞争是高（即熟悉物体的部分可能出现在那里）还是低（新物体可能出现）。我们预测更大的竞争会产生更多的背景抑制。通过对目标条方向的判断来评估抑制的两个实验结果证实了这一预测；第三个实验表明背景抑制是短暂的。我们的研究结果尤其支持图形分配的抑制性竞争模型，总体上也支持需要反馈的视觉感知模型。
