Sixty Ss were shown drawings of an unfamiliar figure, Bartlett's (1932) Egyptian ‘mulak.’ Half of the Ss were shown the drawing with a subliminally presented square background and half with a similarly presented circular background. 16 independent judges inspected the reproductions and judged them for angularity or curvature. It was found that judgments of angularity or curvature were related to the shape of the background figures used with the first group of Ss. In a control experiment where the backgrounds were masked by cardboard no such tendency was observed.
