What's in a stage name? Comment on Vecera and O'Reilly (1998)

M. A. Peterson and colleagues proposed that early object recognition processes proceed in parallel with processes assessing "low-level" configurai cues and that the outputs of all these processes combine to determine figure-ground segregation. S. P. Vecera and R. C. O'Reilly (1998) presented an interactive model designed to account for Peterson and colleagues' results while retaining the traditional assumption that figure-ground segregation precedes access to object memories. This commentary explicates the figure-ground-first assumption, reviews the evidence for the parallel proposal, and critiques the Vecera and O'Reilly model. It is shown that, because the Vecera and O'Reilly model relies on an assumption that object recognition affects figure-ground only when low-level cues are ambiguous, it retains the figure-ground-first assumption in name only. Further, it is shown that the model cannot account for all the evidence. Implications of possible amendments to the model are considered.