I've read all the way through this 2nd revision of Lehar's ms., and I now think that it is suitable for publication. I have once again reached the conclusion that this paper provides a potentially valuable contribution to our understanding of form perception. The author seems to have done a conscientious and effective job in improving the conciseness and clarity of the paper (though I do not have the previous version with which to compare it).
I still have some questions that the author might wish to address. Publication need not depend on the answers, however. One of my questions probably will occur as well to some other readers—concerning the time characteristics of these harmonic resonance responses. The standing wave patterns described by the author are dynamic, but little information is provided about the speed with which they may develop. Retinal stimulation patterns generally are moving, so that the Gestalt representation has to be maintained over positional shifts that occur with movements of the eyes and objects. (1) How rapidly can stimulus patterns shift and deform without destroying these neural response patterns? (2) Does image motion facilitate or interfere with the emergence of such patterns? Psychophysical evidence indicates that common and relative image motion facilitates the perception of spatial patterns, but it is not clear to me whether this would occur for these harmonic resonance responses. It depends, of course, on the underlying physiological mechanisms. (Some of the abundant evidence that image motion facilitates spatial vision is provided by Johansson's extensive research [see the book edited by Johansson et al, 1994]; also Lappin et al, Vision Res., 2002; Lappin et al,. Perception, 1991.)