When figure-ground segregation fails: Exploring antagonistic interactions in figure-ground perception

Perceptual fading of an artificial scotoma can be viewed as a failure of figure-ground segregation, providing a useful tool for investigating possible mechanisms and processes involved in figure-ground perception. Weisstein's antagonistic magnocellular/parvocellular stream figure-ground model proposes P stream activity encodes figure, and M stream activity encodes background. Where a boundary separates two regions, the region that is perceived as figure or ground is determined by the outcome of antagonism between M and P activity within each region and across the boundary between them. The region with the relatively stronger P "figure signal" is perceived as figure, and the region with the relatively stronger M "ground signal" is perceived as ground. From this perspective, fading occurs when the figure signal is overwhelmed by the ground signal. Strengthening the figure signal or weakening the ground signal should make the figure more resistant to fading. Based on research showing that red light suppresses M activity and short wavelength sensitive S-cones provide minimal input to M cells, we used red and blue light to reduce M activity in both figure and ground. The time to fade from stimulus onset until the figure completely disappeared was measured. Every combination of gray, green, red, and blue as figure and/or ground was tested. Compared with gray and green light, fade times were greatest when red or blue light either strengthened the figure signal by reducing M activity in the figure, or weakened the ground signal by reducing M activity in ground. The results support a dynamic antagonistic relationship between M and P activity contributing to figure-ground perception as envisioned in Weisstein's model.