Completing visual contours: the relationship between relatability and minimizing inflections

Percept Psychophys. 1999 Jul;61(5):943-51. doi: 10.3758/bf03206908.

Abstract

Visual completion is a ubiquitous phenomenon: Human vision often constructs contours and surfaces in regions that have no sharp gradients in any image property. When does human vision interpolate a contour between a given pair of luminance-defined edges? Two different answers have been proposed: relatability and minimizing inflections. We state and prove a proposition that links these two proposals by showing that, under appropriate conditions, relatability is mathematically equivalent to the existence of a smooth curve with no inflection points that interpolates between the two edges. The proposition thus provides a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for two edges to be relatable. On the basis of these conditions, we suggest a way to extend the definition of relatability (1) to include the role of genericity, and (2) to extend the current all-or-none character of relatability to a graded measure that can track the gradedness in psychophysical data.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Humans
  • Models, Biological
  • Psychophysics
  • Visual Perception / physiology*