The Perception of Subjective Surfaces

Abstract : It is proposed that subjective contours are an artifact of the perception of natural three dimensional surfaces. A recent theory of surface interpolation implies that 'subjective surfaces' are constructed in the visual system by interpolation between three-dimensional values arising from interpretation of a variety of surface cues. We show that subjective surfaces can take any form, including singly and doubly curved surfaces, as well as the commonly discussed fronto-parallel planes.