On the nature and order of organizational processing: A reply to Peterson

Several points in the original article by Palmer and Rock (1994) are clarified in light of Peterson’s (1994) commentary. First, we address several issues related to the nature and order of organizational processes in our theory. We argue that many of her objections result from misconceptions about our theory. We attempt to clarify the relevant issues, including the fact that we intended the theory to describe an ordering of processes in cascade rather than as a sequence of classical discrete stages. Second, we discuss Peterson’s objections to our discussion of her findings on the relation between figure-ground processing and object recognition. We argue against her “prefigural recognition” proposal on logical grounds and provide an alternative account of her findings in terms of our theory.

[1]  Saul Sternberg,et al.  The discovery of processing stages: Extensions of Donders' method , 1969 .

[2]  S. Palmer,et al.  Rethinking perceptual organization: The role of uniform connectedness , 1994, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[3]  D Marr,et al.  Cooperative computation of stereo disparity. , 1976, Science.

[4]  S. Howard Bartley,et al.  Introduction to Perception , 1980 .

[5]  Recency as a function of perceptual oscillation. , 1961, The American journal of psychology.

[6]  B. Gibson,et al.  Shape Recognition Inputs To Figure-Ground Organization in Three-Dimensional Displays , 1993, Cognitive Psychology.

[7]  I ROCK,et al.  A re-examination of Rubin's figural aftereffect. , 1957, Journal of experimental psychology.

[8]  M. Peterson.  The proper placement of uniform connectedness , 1994, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[9]  Tomaso Poggio,et al.  Cooperative computation of stereo disparity , 1988 .

[10]  Jitendra Malik,et al.  A Computational Framework for Determining Stereo Correspondence from a Set of Linear Spatial Filters , 1991, ECCV.

[11]  I. Rock,et al.  An introduction to perception , 1975 .

[12]  K. Koffka.  Principles Of Gestalt Psychology , 1936 .

[13]  H. Wallach.  SOME CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE RELATION BETWEEN PERCEPTION AND COGNITION , 1949 .

[14]  I. Biederman.  Recognition-by-components: a theory of human image understanding. , 1987, Psychological review.

[15]  D Marr,et al.  A computational theory of human stereo vision. , 1979, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[16]  Mary A. Peterson,et al.  The initial identification of figure-ground relationships: Contributions from shape recognition processes , 1991 .

[17]  Jitendra Malik,et al.  Computational framework for determining stereo correspondence from a set of linear spatial filters , 1992, Image Vis. Comput..

[18]  James L. McClelland.  On the time relations of mental processes: An examination of systems of processes in cascade. , 1979 .

[19]  O. Reiser,et al.  Principles Of Gestalt Psychology , 1936 .