Open Peer Commentary Pessoa et al.: Perceptual completion
Area, surface, and contour: Psychophysical correlates of three classes of pictorial completion
Birgitta Dresp a1 a1 Laboratoire de Psychophysique Sensorielle, EP 618 du C.N.R.S., Université Louis Pasteur, 67000 Strasbourg, France
bee@currifl.u-strasbg.fr
Abstract
A simple working taxonomy with three classes of pictorial
completion is proposed as an alternative to Pessoa et al.'s
classification: area, surface, and contour completion. The
classification is based on psychophysical evidence, not on the
different phenomenal attributes of the stimuli, showing that
pictorial completion is likely to involve mechanistic interactions
in the visual system at different levels of processing. Whether
the concept of “filling-in” is an appropriate metaphor
for the visual mechanisms that may underlie perceptual completion
is questioned.
