The Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization

Perceptual organization comprises a wide range of processes such as perceptual grouping, figure-ground organization, filling-in, completion, perceptual switching, etc. Such processes are most notable in the context of shape perception but they also play a role in texture perception, lightness perception, color perception, motion perception, depth perception, etc. Perceptual organization deals with a variety of perceptual phenomena of central interest, studied from many different perspectives, including psychophysics, experimental psychology, neuropsychology, neuroimaging, neurophysiology, and computational modeling. Given its central importance in phenomenal experience, perceptual organization has also figured prominently in classic Gestalt writings on the topic, touching upon deep philosophical issues regarding mind-brain relationships and consciousness. In addition, it attracts a great deal of interest from people working in applied areas like visual art, design, architecture, music, and so forth.

The Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization provides a broad and extensive review of the current literature, written in an accessible form for scholars and students. With chapter written by leading researchers in the field, this is the state-of-the-art reference work on this topic, and will be so for many years to come.

Johan Wagemans, University of Leuven, Laboratory of Experimental Psychology

Johan Wagemans has a BA in psychology and philosophy, an MSc and a PhD in experimental psychology, all from the University of Leuven, where he is currently a full professor. Current research interests are mainly in so-called mid-level vision (perceptual grouping, figure-ground organization, depth and shape perception) but stretching out to low-level vision (contrast detection and discrimination) and high-level vision (object recognition and categorization), including applications in autism, arts, and sports. He is supervising a long-term research program aimed at reintegrating Gestalt psychology into contemporary vision science and neuroscience (see www.gestaltrevision.be) He is chief-editor of Perception, i-Perception and Art & Perception.

Section One: General Background
1. Historical and conceptual background: Gestalt theory, Johan Wagemans
2. Philosophical background: Phenomenology, Liliana Albertazzi
3. Methodological background: Experimental phenomenology, Jan Koenderink
Section Two: Groups, Patterns, Textures
4. Traditional and new principles of perceptual grouping, Joseph L. Brooks
5. Emergent features and feature combination, James R. Pomerantz and Anna I. Cragin
6. Symmetry perception, Peter A. van der Helm
7. The perception of hierarchical structure, Ruth Kimchi
8. Statistical regularities
9. Texture perception, Ruth Rosenholtz
Section Three: Contours and Shapes
10. Contour Integration: Psychophysical, neurophysiological, and computational perspectives, Robert F. Hess, Keith A. May, and Serge O. Dumoulin
11. Bridging the dimensional gap: Perceptual organization of contour in two-dimensional shape, James H. Elder
12. Visual representation of contour and shape, Manish Singh
Section Four: Figure-Ground Organization
13. Low-level and high-level contributions to figure-ground organization, Mary A. Peterson
14. Figures and holes, Marco Bertamini and Roberto Casati
15. Perceptual completions, Rob van Lier and Walter Gerbino
16. The neural mechanisms of figure-ground segregation, Matthew W. Self and Pieter R. Roelfsema
17. Neural mechanisms of figure-ground organization: Border-ownership, competition and perceptual switching, Naoki Kogo and Raymond van Ee
18. Border inference and border ownership. The challenge of integrating geometry and topology, Steven W. Zucker
Section Five: Surface and Colour Perception
19. Perceptual organization in lightness, Alan Gilchrist
20. Achromatic transparency, Walter Gerbino
21. Perceptual organization of colour, Hannah Smithson
22. The perceptual representation of transparency, lightness, and gloss, Barton L. Anderson
Section Six: Motion and Event Perception
23. Apparent motion and reference frames, Michael Herzog and Haluk Ogmen
24. Perceptual organization and the aperture problem, Nicola Bruno and Marco Bertamini
25. Stereokinetic effect, kinetic depth effect,and structure from motion, Stefano Vezzani, Peter Kramer, and Paola Bressan
26. Interactions of form and motion in the perception of moving objects, Christopher D. Blair, Peter U. Tse, and Gideon P. Caplovitz
27. Dynamic grouping motion: A method for determining perceptual organization for objects with connected surfaces, Howard S. Hock
28. Biological and body motion perception, Martin A. Giese
Section Seven: Perceptual Organization and other Modalities
29. Auditory perceptual organization, Susan L. Denham and Istvan Winkler
30. Tactile and haptic perceptual organization, Astrid M. L. Kappers and Wouter M. Bergmann Tiest
31. Cross-modal perceptual organization, Charles Spence
32. Sensory substitution: A new perceptual experience, Noelle R. B. Stiles and Shinsuke Shimojo
33. Different modes of visual organization for perception and for action, Melvyn A. Goodale and Tzvi Ganel
Section Eight: Special Interest Topics
34. Development of perceptual organization in infancy, Paul C. Quinn and Ramesh S. Bhatt
35. Individual differences in local and global perceptual organization, Lee de-Wit and Johan Wagemans
36. Mutual interplay between perceptual organization and attention: a neuropsychological perspective, Celine R. Gillebert and Glyn W. Humphreys
37. Holistic face perception, Marlene Behrmann, Jennifer J. Richler, Galia Avidan, and Ruth Kimchi
38. Binocular rivalry and perceptual ambiguity, David Alais and Randolph Blake
39. Perceptual organization and consciousness, D. Samuel Schwarzkopf and Geraint Rees
40. The temporal organization of perception, Alex Holcombe
Section Nine: Applications of Perceptual Organization
41. Camouflage and perceptual organization in the animal kingdom, Daniel Osorio and Innes C. Cuthill
42. Design insights: Gestalt, Bauhaus and Japanese gardens, Gert J. van Tonder and Dhanraj Vishwanath
43. Perceptual organization in visual art, Jan J. Koenderink
Section Ten: Theoretical Approaches
44. Hierarchical organization by and-or tree, Jungseock Joo, Shuo Wang, and So ng-Chun Zhu
45. Probabilistic models of perceptual features, Jacob Feldman
46. On the dynamic perceptual characteristics of Gestalten: Theory-based methods, James T. Townsend and Michael J. Wenger
47. Hierarchical stages or emergence in perceptual integration?, Cees van Leeuwen
48. Cortical dynamics and oscillations: What controls what we see?, Cees van Leeuwen
49. Bayesian models of perceptual organization, Jacob Feldman
50. Simplicity in perceptual organization, Peter A. van der Helm
51. Gestalts as ecological templates, Jan J. Koenderink