Memory and Learning in Figure-Ground Perception
                           Mary A. Peterson
                        University of Arizona

It has long been thought that figure and ground assignment precedes
access to shape and object memories, and therefore that past
experience cannot affect the determination of what is figure and what
is ground. I will briefly review a series of experiments indicating
that this traditional assumption is incorrect. Instead, memories of
known shapes (objects) are accessed sufficiently early in the course
of perceptual processing to affect figure and ground assignment. I
will present a competitive model that accounts both for these results
and for why grounds are perceived to be shapeless, and I will describe
experiments testing predictions from the model. I will close by asking
how much experience with a novel shape is sufficient for it's memory
to influence figure assignment.