Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Practicing artists, art students, and non artists were asked to respond to six different two-dimensional infinite patterns which they viewed via a new methodology that presents the stimuli as iterating dots on a computer screen. As evidenced in the drawings they made, most viewers searched for shapes with clearly defined edges in the "negative" background space, rather than for shapes as defined by clusters of dots. The process of shape definition using the figure/ground distinction and the issue that past experience influences our perceptions are discussed.