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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: Vision Res. 2011 Feb 15;51(13):1538–1551. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2011.01.015

Figure 7. Cognitive contours, unit formation and relatedness.

Figure 7

(a) Gregory (1972) pointed out that we may perceive a shape covering the discs to most easily explain the missing bits of discs. This figure suggests that the collinear edges may be more important than the “cognitive” shape as here the shapes and their depth order are unstable but the subjective contours remain. (b) Kellman and Shipley (1991) proposed a set of principles underlying relatedness that drives the linking of contours and surfaces. (c) Tse (1999a, b) showed that the relatedeness was not necessarily at the level of image contours as in this example a volume appears to link behind the cylinder in the absence of any collinear contours.