Test of Petter's rule for perceived surface stratification.

Petter's rule applies to two-dimensional patterns formed by two overlapping surfaces that alternatively appear in front of one another. It states that the surface with the shorter contours in the region where the surfaces look superimposed has a greater probability of appearing in front of the other surface. An experiment is reported the results of which show that Petter's rule is valid for chromatically homogeneous and for uniformly dense dotted patterns, and invalid for different kinds of chromatically inhomogeneous patterns. Petter's rule has been found to be valid when the overlapping surfaces have contours with gaps. It is proposed that Petter's rule derives from the dynamics of filling-in of contour gaps.