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No evidence for surface organization in Kanizsa configurations during continuous flash suppression.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Moors, Pieter 
Wagemans, Johan 
van Ee, Raymond 
de-Wit, Lee 

Abstract

Does one need to be aware of a visual stimulus for it to be perceptually organized into a coherent whole? The answer to this question regarding the interplay between Gestalts and visual awareness remains unclear. Using interocular suppression as the paradigm for rendering stimuli invisible, conflicting evidence has been obtained as to whether the traditional Kanizsa surface is constructed during interocular suppression. While Sobel and Blake (2003) and Harris, Schwarzkopf, Song, Bahrami, and Rees (2011) failed to find evidence for this, Wang, Weng, and He (2012) showed that standard configurations of Kanizsa pacmen would break interocular suppression faster than their rotated counterparts. In the current study, we replicated the findings by Wang et al. (2012) but show that neither an account based on the construction of a surface nor one based on the long-range collinearities in the standard Kanizsa configuration stimulus could fully explain the difference in breakthrough times. We discuss these findings in the context of differences in the amplitudes of the Fourier orientation spectra for all stimulus types. Thus, we find no evidence that the integration of separate elements takes place during interocular suppression of Kanizsa stimuli, suggesting that this Gestalt involving figure-ground assignment is not constructed when rendered nonconscious using interocular suppression.

Description

Keywords

Continuous flash suppression, Figure-ground organization, Illusory contours, Kanizsa stimulus, Visual awareness, Adult, Awareness, Humans, Illusions, Photic Stimulation, Visual Perception, Young Adult

Journal Title

Atten Percept Psychophys

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1943-3921
1943-393X

Volume Title

78

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
PM is supported by the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (FWO) through a doctoral fellowship. JW is supported by the Methusalem program of the Flemish Government (METH/08/02 and METH/14/02). RVE is supported by FWO and the EU Horizon 2020 program (HealthPac). LDW is supported by FWO through a postdoctoral fellowship.