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Figure and ground in the brain

Segregation of an image into figure and ground is an important step in visual processing. Two new papers show that responses in human and monkey brain areas known to be involved in shape perception depend critically on whether a region is perceived as figure or ground.

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Figure 1: The assignment of image regions as 'figure' or 'background' has a dramatic effect on their perceived shape.

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Rubin, N. Figure and ground in the brain. Nat Neurosci 4, 857–858 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0901-857

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