Front Psychol. 2011 Jun 06;2:119. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00119. eCollection 2011.
Frontiers in psychology
Katinka van der Kooij, Susan F Te Pas
PMID: 21713121 PMCID: PMC3112334 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00119
Evidence for contextual effects is widespread in visual perception. Although this suggests that contextual effects are the result of a generic property of the visual system, current explanations are limited to the domain in which they occur. In this paper we propose a more general mechanism of global influences on the perception of slant. We review empirical data and evaluate proposed explanations of contextual biases. By assessing not only a model about three-dimensional slant perception but also evaluating more generic mechanisms of contextual modulation, we show that surround suppression of neural responses explains the major phenomena in the empirical data on contextual biases. Moreover, contextual biases may be part of a mechanism of grouping and segmentation.
Keywords: 3D; context; long-range interaction; slant contrast; surround suppression