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do with the purely physical properties of the

world around us, but is determined, to a

greater or lesser extent, by our presenting

needs. When our in-built survival mechanisms

are doing the job they were meant to do, our

senses will scan the presenting world-view for

elements that will satisfy our subjective needs

at that particular moment. These needs may

be physical or emotional; if we’re walking in

the high street and our bladder is full, we’ll

ignore the shops, the restaurants, the traffic

and the passers-by and scan the totality of the

presenting visual field for the presence of an

image of a public toilet. Once found, we make

a bee-line toward it. Need satisfied, problem

solved. Or, in a crowded room, we listen to the

babel of voices around us to identify the

particular sound of the voice of a loved one.

It’s an experienced fact, then, that we isolate

that which is personally meaningful – that is,

the foreground – from the irrelevant

background from which it is drawn. You or I, in