Visual prior entry for foreground figures

Figural properties are prioritized for search under conditions of uncertainty: Setting boundary conditions on claims that figures automatically attract attention

“…This pattern of results is the opposite of what one would expect if attention were automatically drawn to the convex figure closest to fixation. Because convex regions are highly likely to be perceived as figures in front of a surface interpolated across the concave regions in 8-region displays (Goldreich & Peterson, 2012;Mojica & Peterson, 2014), these results also indicate that results showing that attention is automatically drawn to near surfaces (e.g., Lester, et al, 2009;West, et al, 2013) Lehmkuhle and Fox (1980) showed that depth separation reduces the masking effect of contours.…”

“…A critical feature of figures is that they are perceived as shaped by the border they share with abutting regions, whereas the abutting regions, lacking a contour, appear locally shapeless and seem to continue behind the figure. Some research shows that when there are sufficient depth cues to indicate which of two surfaces is closer to the viewer, the closer one receives processing priority (e.g., Lester, Hecht, & Vecera, 2009). This effect seems to be automatic, as it is obtained even when target and display onset simultaneously (West, Pratt, & Peterson, 2013).…”

Delayed offset detection on figures relative to backgrounds

“…The current results, along with those of previous research (e.g., Lester et al, 2009), demonstrate that the consequences of figure-ground assignment on temporal perception parallel those found in the spatial attention research (e.g., Hein et al, 2006;Rolke et al, 2006;Shore & Spence, 2005;Shore et al, 2001;Yeshurun, 2004;Yeshurun & Levy, 2003). This raises the question of whether the prior-entry-like effect and the current temporal effect (i.e., delayed offset detection) for figures are a corollary of figure-ground processes or simply reflect a shift of spatial attention, in which attention is drawn to figural regions.…”

“…The first temporal effect, in which figures receive processing ahead of grounds, was supported in a series of experiments examining a "prior entry" effect for figureground displays (Lester, Hecht, & Vecera, 2009). The "prior entry" effect was originally characterized by attended events being perceived before unattended events (e.g., Shore & Spence, 2005;Titchener, 1908).…”

“…The "prior entry" effect was originally characterized by attended events being perceived before unattended events (e.g., Shore & Spence, 2005;Titchener, 1908). Using a temporal order judgment (TOJ) task, Lester et al (2009) varied the delay between the onset of two targets. They found that targets appearing on the backgrounds needed to onset earlier than targets appearing on the foreground figures in order for the two targets to be perceived as occurring simultaneously (i.e., a "prior-entry-like" effect).…”