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Figure-ground organization has two perceptible consequences: Regions seen as figure appear to have a definite shape and appear to be interposed in front of ground regions, which appear to be locally shapeless. These outcomes can be readily observed in the Rubin vase-faces stimulus shown in Figure 1. When the black center region appears to be figure, it appears to have a definite shape–one we can name as a vase or a goblet. The white region ap-pears shapeless near the contours it shares with the black region and simply appears to continue behind the black figure. When figure–ground organization reverses such that the white surrounding regions appear to be the figures, they appear to have definite shapes, which we can name as two profiles. The black region now appears to be shapeless near the contours it shares with the