Table Of ContentPerception of the Visual
Environment
Springer
New York
Berlin
Heidelberg
Barcelona
Hong Kong
London
Milan
Paris
Singapore
Tokyo
Ronald G. Boothe
Perception of the
Visual Environment
With 472 Illustrations
1 3
Ronald G. Boothe
Yerkes Regional Primate Center
Emory University
Atlanta, GA30322 USA
[email protected]
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Boothe, Ronald G.
Perception of the visual environment / Ronald G. Boothe.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-387-98790-8 (alk. paper)
1. Visual perception. I. Title.
BF241 .B66 2001
152.14 – dc21 00-053768
Printed on acid-free paper.
© 2002 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part
without the written permission of the publisher (Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA), except for brief excerpts in
connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form
of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or
by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is
forbidden.
The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this
publication, even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as
a sign that such names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks
Act, may accordingly be used freely by anyone.
Production coordinated by Chernow Editorial Services, Inc., and managed by
MaryAnn Brickner; manufacturing supervised by Jacqui Ashri.
Typeset by Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong.
Printed and bound by Edwards Brothers, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI.
Printed in the United States of America.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 0-387-98790-8 SPIN 10715364
Springer-Verlag New York Berlin Heidelberg
Amember of BertelsmannSpringer Science+Business Media GmbH
To my family
Preface: Why Did I Write
This Book?
Visual perception is by its very nature an interdisciplinary topic that
requires a basic understanding of concepts derived from diverse fields,
including physiological optics, neuroscience, cognitive science and psy-
chology, clinical optometry and ophthalmology, philosophy, information
theory, neural networks, artificial intelligence, and robotics. After teach-
ing an undergraduate course on the topic of perception for several years,
I remain frustrated in my attempts to find a textbook that covers an
appropriate range of these topics. Several years ago, I began preparing a
number of lecture handouts for my own students. Over the years, these
handouts expanded into the current manuscript, which will serve as a
textbook for my course on visual perception.
The primary audience consists of juniors and seniors majoring in psy-
chology, biology, or neuroscience. Many are planning to attend graduate
school in psychology or neuroscience or to enter medicine or a related
health profession. Graduate students and postgraduates in related fields
who have an interest in learning more about perception form a secondary
audience.
The book introduces a number of diverse topics and concepts that
pertain to perception. No background knowledge of any of these topics
is assumed except for basic concepts learned in introductory courses in
biology and psychology.
Such a text requires many hard choices, sometimes compromises, to
keep the scope of the material within the limits of what can reasonably
be covered in a one semester undergraduate course. One choice is how
much of the primary scientific literature based on studies of animals to
include. Ahuge scientific literature in the field of visual neuroscience is
derived from studies of many species of animals. This text largely limits
the discussion of animal studies to results obtained from monkeys, even
in cases where the monkey studies are simply a confirmation of a much
larger prior literature based on work with other animals. Although this
approach fails to give appropriate credit for many discoveries that were
first made in other species and only later confirmed in monkeys, the
primary purpose of this book is pedagogical. It is not to provide a
vii
viii Preface
detailed historical description of how the facts presented here were orig-
inally discovered. The text strives to explain in a manner that can be
grasped by undergraduates the major ideas and scientific discoveries
that have allowed us to understand perception as it occurs in humans.
Asimilarly hard choice was deciding how many citations to include
to the primary scientific literature. Almost every paragraph in this book
could have numerous citations to published studies or references to
the names of individuals who developed the ideas being discussed.
However, specific citations are not included in the text, which only refers
to a few individual scientists by name, thereby neglecting a vast army of
other researchers who made the discoveries summarized here. In some
cases, particularly when describing a very specific finding or set of
studies by contemporary workers, the name of the author in whose lab
the study was conducted is mentioned. However, the inclusion of numer-
ous citations or names of scientists interfered with the primary goal of
introducing the major concepts and facts in an uncluttered manner. Also,
at times, complex results had to be simplified in a manner that remains
true to the spirit of the original research findings, but may differ enough
in some specific details that a specific citation might give offense rather
than credit. To compensate, a limited list of suggested readings appears
at the end of each chapter. These readings, along with key words or
phrases, allow the interested student to locate relevant original literature
through bibliographic searches.
I would like to thank all of my students, graduate and undergraduate,
over the past several years who provided considerable feedback about
previous drafts of the material. I also owe a particular debt of gratitude
to a few colleagues who were kind enough to read drafts of one or more
chapters and provide comments: Velma Dobson, Larry Barsalou, Dolores
Bradley, Jim Wilson, Michael Mustari, and Valab Das. Many improve-
ments were made to the manuscript by taking their feedback into
account. Of course I did not always heed the good advice that was given
to me, and any deficiencies and errors that remain in the final version
are my own.
I thank Emory University for granting me a sabbatical leave during
which the basic framework of the text was outlined and drafted. I spent
the sabbatical leave working at the University of Washington, away from
the normal distractions of my professorial duties. I thank Davida Teller
for sponsoring me for a visiting scholar appointment in the Department
of Psychology at the University of Washington during my leave. I owe a
debt of gratitude to Jean Torbit for providing me with innumerable assis-
tance in obtaining permissions to republish figures from other sources.
Finally, I am grateful to my family for their ongoing support and inspi-
ration, and in particular my wife Marilyn for providing me with draw-
ings of penguins and for her patience during the writing of this
manuscript.
Ronald G. Boothe
Atlanta, Georgia
Contents
Preface: Why Did I Write This Book? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Chapter 1 Conceptual and Philosophical Issues:
What Does It Mean to Assert That an
Observer Perceives? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2 Psychophysical Methods: What Scientific
Procedures Can Be Used to Ask an Observer
What Is Being Perceived? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Chapter 3 The Perceptual Environment: What Is Out
There to Be Perceived? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Chapter 4 Sensing the Environment:
What Mechanisms Are Used to Sample,
Image, and Transduce Physical Stimulation
from the Environment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Chapter 5 Perceptual Processing I. Biological Hardware:
What Properties of Neural Tissues Support
Perceptual Processing in Humans and
Monkeys? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Chapter 6 Perceptual Processing II. Abstractions:
How Can Perceptual Processing Be
Characterized and Modeled as Flow of
Abstract Information? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
ix
x Contents
Chapter 7 Color Vision: How Are Objective Wavelengths
of Light Transformed into Secondary
Qualities of Percepts Called Colors? . . . . . . . . 191
Chapter 8 Form Vision: How Is Information About
Shapes of Objects Transferred from the
Environment to Our Percepts? . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Chapter 9 Perception of Three-Dimensional Space:
How Do We Use Information Derived from
One or Both Eyes to Perceive the Spatial
Layout of Our Surroundings? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Chapter 10 Dynamic How-Perception: How Do
We Perceive and React to Change
and Motion? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Chapter 11 Perceptual Development: Where Does the
Information Come from That Allows
Perceptual Systems to Become Wired
Together in Such a Manner That They
Can Perceive? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Chapter 12 Higher-Order and Subjective Aspects of
Perception: How Are Low-Level Stimulus
Properties Transformed into High-Level
Percept Qualities? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
1
Conceptual and Philosophical Issues:
What Does It Mean to Assert That an
Observer Perceives?
1 Major Components of Perception . . . . . . . 2 The Environment and the Brain . . . . . . 12
The Environment Provides Environment to Sense Organ . . . . . . . 12
the Input to Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Sense Organ to Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Perceptual Processing Mechanisms . . . . 3 3 Information Processing Theories . . . . . . . . 13
Percepts Are the Output Products of Constructive Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Perceptual Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Sensations Versus Percepts . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 Causal Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4 Direct Perception Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
The Environment and Percepts . . . . . . . 5 5 Where Should We Search for Explanations
Realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 of Perception? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Idealism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Levels of Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Phenomenalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Are Some Perspectives or Levels of
Direct and Indirect Forms Description Special? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
of Realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Marr’s Integrative Approach . . . . . . . . . 21
Biology and Percepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Simplifying and Realistic Models . . . . . 21
Homunculus Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 6 Perception in Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Bridge Locus Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Emergent Properties Solutions . . . . . . 10 Selected Reading List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Limited-Scope Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Questions “subjective perceptual experience.” Use the
example of the phenomenon of binocular
rivalry to illustrate what is meant by these three
After reading Chapter 1, you should be able to
distinct aspects of percepts.
answer the following questions:
4. Compare and contrast the philosophical
1. Provide a working definition of the term positions of realism, idealism, and phen-
perception. omenalism regarding the causal relationships
2. Perception can be conceptualized as having 3 that exist between the environment and
components. Characterize each of these com- percepts.
ponents from two or more perspectives or 5. What is the mind-body problem with regard
levels of analysis. to perception, and what types of solutions
3. Percepts convey to observers “knowledge have been proposed to try to account for this
about what,” “knowledge about how,” and problem?
1
