To answer my own question, I think the answer is that this is indeed
known as figure-ground, and is a tenet of Gestalt psychology. The
request for reading recommendations remains though.
Cheers
alex
2009/9/25 alex <alex_at_lurk.org>:
> Hi all,
>
> I've got a question for the philosophers among us...
>
> When we hear music we perceive rhythm in terms of meter, and infer
> meter from the rhythm. When we hear a sound we perceive it in terms
> of the instrument that made it, and infer the instrument from the
> sound. When we see a figure in a picture we perceive it in terms of
> the ground behind it, and infer the ground from the figure. We
> understand a linguistic statement in terms of a metaphorical
> structure, which we infer from the statement. When we have a
> conversation we build perceive words in terms of the person who says
> it, and build a picture of the person in terms of the words they say.
>
> This seems to be a general structure of experience -- perceiving
> something in terms of underlying structure which inferred by the
> something you're perceiving. I think this must be something that
> philosophers have thought about, psychologists too. Does it have a
> name? What should I read to understand it better?
>
> Cheers
>
> alex
>
> --
> http://yaxu.org/
>
--
http://yaxu.org/
Received on Fri Sep 25 2009 - 10:33:45 BST