Grounding perception in figure-on-ground configuration requires original nihilation by attention

Evidence

But we must observe that in perception there is always the construction of a figure on a ground. No one object, no group of objects is especially designed to be organized as specifically either ground or figure; all depends on the direction of my attention. When I enter this café to search for Pierre, there is formed a synthetic organization of all the objects in the café, on the ground of which Pierre is given as about to appear. This organization of the café as the ground is an original nihilation. Each element of the setting, a person, a table, a chair, attempts to isolate itself, to lift itself upon the ground constituted by the totality of the other objects, only to fall back once more into the undifferentiation of this ground; it melts into the ground. For the ground is that which is seen only in addition, that which is the object of a purely marginal attention. Thus the original nihilation of all the figures which appear and are swallowed up in the total neutrality of a ground is the necessary condition for the appearance of the principle figure, which is here the person of Pierre. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 192

Categorization

• DEFINE: Key ontological mechanism: attention’s synthetic organization nihilates the ground to make the figure appear; this is the groundwork for nihilation as the for-itself’s constitution of the world.
• XREF: Connects to figure-ground distinctions from soundscape and listening literature in the reader’s library (Schafer’s keynote/signal), plus gestalt psychology. — connects to: Directed attention does not weaken world-consciousness but relegates the world to ground — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 881; Attention constitutes reality differently for different perceivers; Attention duration and quality expand perceptual granularity (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Directed attention does not weaken world-consciousness but relegates the world to ground #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 881
• Attention duration and quality expand perceptual granularity #expands (0.78)
• Attention constitutes reality differently for different perceivers #expands (0.75)