What is Figure-Ground?

 

The characteristic organization of perception into a figure that stands out against an undifferentiated background. An example is a printed word on a background page. the word becomes the figure the page becomes the ground. What is the figure at any one moment depends on patterns of sensory stimulation and on the momentary interest of the perceiver.

 

When we decide what the figure is, we assign the rest to background. For an example a cup on a table, the cup would be the figure and the table would be the ground. This separation occurs for objects with ambiguous shapes as well. For example in Figure 1 a white region stands out more. It is more cohesive, so we perceive it as a figure. The black region is formless, and seems to behind the white region, therefore, it is a ground. While in most situations the distinction between figure and ground is clear, in some cases it may not be

In Figure 2 a classic example of figure ground reversal. Which did you see first: A white Vase or two Faces looking at each other? What you see first is probably formed from the context that you were coming from. The point is that people can perceive the same thing differently. So designers need to be aware of the reversal figure ground images and the problems that can arise from them.

More Examples of reversal Figure Ground

 
Designers must be aware of these possible differences in perception. The main worry is that viewers may not see the same thing that the designer did.. Supposedly, an image such as Figure 2 is on a web page. A web designer may have intentended it to be a white vase on a black background. He or she may not look at it as anything else because he knows what the object is supposed to be. How ever, the viewer does not know what the object is, and so they try to interpret what it is through process of perception. Some of these people can decide that it is a vase. while others will decide that it is a pair of silhouetted faces. Also, images may not offer two distinct soutions, such as Figure 2 does. Whereas in an image a web designer, would clearly see what the object and the ground are, viewers may simply get confused. To avoid problems designers must try to eliminate the possible differences in perception by making sure that the pages perceived and interpreted in the same way by everybody at all times. To acccomplish this, first it is necessary to make objects, text or images as unambiguious as possible. A Figure msut stand out and be clearly distingusihed from the ground. If it is an image, it will be also useful to put it into a appropriate context, thus increasing the likelihood that the users will interpret it correctly. Second, it is important for designers to make sure that they look at the image or web page from different perspectives. Another solution is let others both colleagues and non professionals to look at the image .