ABSTRACT
The Weight of Evidence theory of figural goodness has been proposed to explain why certain types of regularity are psychologically more relevant than others. Theories of figural goodness explain why some objects appear to be more well-formed than others. The two patterns are composed of the same segments, but in one case they are organized to form a perceptual grouping of high regularity, and in the other case they are not. The effects of figural goodness can be operationalized in several ways. Intuitively, the good figure segments away from the random noise in the left pattern, but there is no such basis for segmentation of figure and noise in the right pattern. The effects of regularity on figural goodness have been examined in numerous studies, and the recent Weight of Evidence model by Helm and Leeuwenberg is an important attempt to explain these effects.
