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© 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, record¬
ing, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing
from the publisher.

This book was set in Baskerville by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong, and
was printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Palmer, Stephen E.
Vision science—photons to phenomenology / Stephen E. Palmer,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-16183-4
1. Vision. 2. Visual perception. 3. Cognitive science.
I. Title.
QP475.P24 1999
612.8'4—dc21 99-11785
CIP
In loving memory of my mentor, colleague, and
friend, Irvin Rock (1922—1995), who taught me
more about visual perception than everyone else
combined and who showed me by example what
it means to be a scientist.
Preface xvii

I Foundations 1

1 An Introduction to Vision Science 3

2 Theoretical Approaches to Vision 45
3 Color Vision: A Microcosm of Vision
Science 94

II Spatial Vision 143

4 Processing Image Structure 145

5 Perceiving Surfaces Oriented in
Depth 199

6 Organizing Objects and Scenes 254

7 Perceiving Object Properties and
Parts 311

8 Representing Shape and Structure 362

9 Perceiving Function and Category 408

III Visual Dynamics 463

10 Perceiving Motion and Events 465
11 Visual Selection: Eye Movements and
Attention 519

12 Visual Memory and Imagery 572

13 Visual Awareness 615

Appendix A: Psychophysical
Methods 665

Appendix B: Connectionist Modeling 675

Appendix C: Color Technology 689
 Glossary 701
References 737
Name Index 771
Subject Index 780

Brief Contents
Contents
I Foundations 1

1 An Introduction to Vision Science 3

1.1 Visual Perception 5
1.1.1 Defining Visual Perception 5
1.1.2 The Evolutionary Utility of Vision 6
1.1.3 Perception as a Constructive Act 7
Adaptation and Aftereffects 7
Reality and Illusion 7
Ambiguous Figures 9
1.1.4 Perception as Modeling the
Environment 10
Visual Completion 10
Impossible Objects 11
Predicting the Future 12
1.1.5 Perception as Apprehension of Meaning 13
Classification 13
Attention and Consciousness 13
1.2 Optical Information 15
1.2.1 The Behavior of Light 15
Illumination 15
Interaction with Surfaces 16
The Ambient Optic Array 18
1.2.2 The Formation of Images 19
Optical Images 20
Projective Geometry 20
Perspective and Orthographic
Projection 21
1.2.3 Vision as an “Inverse” Problem 23
1.3 Visual Systems 24
1.3.1 The Human Eye 24
Eye and Brain 24
Anatomy of the Eye 25
Physiological Optics 26
1.3.2 The Retina 28
Neurons 28
Photoreceptors 29
Peculiarities of Retinal Design 33
Pathways to the Brain 35
1.3.3 Visual Cortex 35
Localization of Function 35
Occipital Cortex 37
Parietal and Temporal Cortex 38
Mapping Visual Cortex 39
 The Physiological Pathways 3 Color Vision: A Microcosm of Vision
Hypothesis 42 Science 94
3.1 The Computational Description of Color
2 Theoretical Approaches to Vision 45 Perception 96
2.1 Classical Theories of Vision 47 3.1.1 The Physical Description of Light 96
2.1.1 Structuralism 48 3.1.2 The Psychological Description of Color 97
2.1.2 Gestaltism 50 Color Space 97
Holism 50 Hue 98
Psychophysiological Isomorphism 51 Saturation 98
2.1.3 Ecological Optics 53 Lightness 98
Analyzing Stimulus Structure 53 Lightness versus Brightness 99
Direct Perception 54 3.1.3 The Psychophysical Correspondence 99
2.1.4 Constructivism 55 3.2 Image-Based Color Processing 101
Unconscious Inference 56 3.2.1 Basic Phenomena 101
Heuristic Interpretation 57 Light Mixture 101
2.2 A Brief History of Information Processing 59 Color Blindness 104
2.2.1 Computer Vision 59 Color Afterimages 105
The Invention of Computers 59 Simultaneous Color Contrast 106
Blocks World 60 Chromatic Adaptation 107
Computational Approaches to Ecological 3.2.2 Theories of Color Vision 107
Optics 61 Trichromatic Theory 107
Connectionism and Neural Networks 62 Opponent Process Theory 108
2.2.2 Information Processing Psychology 63 Dual Process Theory 110
2.2.3 Biological Information Processing 64 3.2.3 Physiological Me chanisms 112
Early Developments 64 Three Cone Systems 112
Single-Cell Recording 64 Color Opponent Cells 113
Autoradiography 66 Reparameterization in Color
Brain Imaging Techniques 66 Processing 114
2.3 Information Processing Theory 70 Lateral Inhibition 115
2.3.1 The Computer Metaphor 71 Adaptation and Aftereffects 119
2.3.2 Three Levels of Information Processing 71 Double Opponent Cells 119
The Computational Level 72 Higher Cortical Mechanisms 120
The Algorithmic Level 72 3.2.4 Development of Color Vision 121
The Implementational Level 73 3.3 Surface-Based Color Processing 122
2.3.3 Three Assumptions of Information 3.3.1 Lightness Constancy 125
Processing 73 Adaptation Theories 125
Informational Description 73 Unconscious Inference versus Relational
Recursive Decomposition 74 Theories 126
Physical Embodiment 77 The Importance of Edges 128
2.3.4 Representation 77 Retinex Theory 128
2.3.5 Processes 80 The Scaling Problem 129
Implicit versus Explicit Information 80 Illumination versus Reflectance
Processing as Inference 80 Edges 130
Hidden Assumptions 81 Distinguishing Illumination from
Heuristic Processes 83 Reflectance Edges 132
Hidden Assumptions versus Ecological 3.3.2 Chromatic Color Constancy 133
Validity 83 Constraining the Problem 133
Top-Down versus Bottom-Up Illumination versus Reflectance Edges
Processes 84 Revisited 134
2.4 Four Stages of Visual Perception 85 Development of Color Constancy 136
2.4.1 The Retinal Image 85 3.4 The Category-Based Stage 137
2.4.2 The Image-Based Stage 87 3.4.1 Color Naming 137
2.4.3 The Surface-Based Stage 88
3.4.2 Focal Colors and Prototypes 139
2.4.4 The Object-Based Stage 90 3.4.3 A Fuzzy-Logical Model of Color
2.4.5 The Category-Based Stage 91 Naming 140

Contents x
 Fuzzy Set Theory 140 4.4.1 Physiological Evidence 193
Primary, Derived, and Composite Color 4.4.2 Perceptual Evidence 195
Categories 141

5 Perceiving Surfaces Oriented in

Depth 199
II Spatial Vision 143 5.1 The Problem of Depth Perception 201
5.1.1 Heuristic Assumptions 202
5.1.2 Marr’s 2.5-D Sketch 202
4 Processing Image Structure 145
5.2 Ocular Information 203
4.1 Physiological Mechanisms 146
5.2.1 Accommodation 203
4.1.1 Retinal and Geniculate Cells 147
5.2.2 Convergence 205
Ganglion Cells 147
5.3 Stereoscopic Information 206
Bipolar Cells 148
5.3.1 Binocular Disparity 206
Lateral Geniculate Nucleus 148
Corresponding Retinal Positions 207
4.1.2 Striate Cortex 151
The Horopter 208
Hubei and Wiesel’s Discovery 151
Stereograms 210
Simple Cells 151
5.3.2 The Correspondence Problem 211
Complex Cells 153
Random Dot Stereograms 212
Hypercomplex C ells 15 3
Autostereograms 214
4.1.3 Striate Architecture 154
Binocular Rivalry 216
The Retinotopic Map 155
5.3.3 Computational Theories 216
Ocular Dominance Slabs 155
The First Marr-Poggio Algorithm 217
Columnar Structure 156
Edge-Based Algorithms 220
4.1.4 Development of Receptive Fields 157
Filtering Algorithms 221
4.2 Psychophysical Channels 158
5.3.4 Physiological Mechanisms 222
4.2.1 Spatial Frequency Theory 159 5.3.5 Vertical Disparity 224
Fourier Analysis 160
5.3.6 Da Vinci Stereopsis 224
Spatial Frequency Channels 162 5.4 Dynamic Information 225
Contrast Sensitivity Functions 163 5.4.1 Motion Parallax 225
Selective Adaptation of Channels 165 5.4.2 Optic Flow Caused by a Moving
Spatial Frequency Aftereffects 166 Observer 226
Thresholds for Sine Wave versus Square 5.4.3 Optic Flow Caused by Moving
Wave Gratings 167 Objects 228
Development of Spatial Frequency 5.4.4 Accretion/Deletion of Texture 229
Channels 168 5.5 Pictorial Information 229
4.2.2 Physiology of Spatial Frequency 5.5.1 Perspective Projection 230
Channels 169
5.5.2 Convergence of Parallel Lines 231
4.3 Computational Approaches 171 5.5.3 Position Relative to the Horizon of a
4.3.1 Marr’s Primal Sketches 172 Surface 231
4.3.2 Edge Detection 172 5.5.4 Relative Size 232
Edge Operators and Convolution 173 5.5.5 Familiar Size 234
The Marr-Hildreth Zero-Crossing 5.5.6 Texture Gradients 234
Algorithm 175 5.5.7 Edge Interpretation 236
Neural Implementation 179 Vertex Classification 237
Scale Integration 180 Four Types of Edges 237
The Raw Primal Sketch 180 Edge Labels 238
4.3.3 Alternative Computational Theories 182 Physical Constraints 239
Texture Analysis 184 Extensions and Generalizations 241
Structure from Shading 184 5.5.8 Shading Information 243
4.3.4 A Theoretical Synthesis 186 Perceiving Surface Orientation from
Local Spatial Frequency Filters 186 Shading 243
Exploiting the Structure of Natural Horn’s Computational Analysis 245
Images 188 Cast Shadows 246
4.4 Visual Pathways 193 5.5.9 Aerial Perspective 246

xi Contents
 5.5.10 Integrating Information Sources 247 6.5.4 The Role of Instructions 304
Dominance 247 6.6 Development of Perceptual Organization 305
Compromise 248 6.6.1 The Habituation Paradigm 306
Interaction 249 6.6.2 The Development of Grouping 306
5.6 Development of Depth Perception 249
5.6.1 Ocular Information 250 7 Perceiving Object Properties and
5.6.2 Stereoscopic Information 251 Parts 311
5.6.3 Dynamic Information 252
Constancy and Illusion 312
5.6.4 Pictorial Information 252
Modes of Perception: Proximal and Distal 313

7.1 Size 314

6 Organizing Objects and Scenes 254
7.1.1 Size Constancy 315
The Problem of Perceptual Organization 255
The Size-Distance Relation 315
The Experience Error 257
Demonstrations of Size Constancy 315
6.1 Perceptual Grouping 257 Departures from Constancy 317
6.1.1 The Classical Principles of Grouping 257 Taking Account of Distance 317
6.1.2 New Principles of Grouping 259 Texture Occlusion 318
6.1.3 Measuring Grouping Effects Relative Size 319
Quantitatively 261 The Horizon Ratio 321
6.1.4 Is Grouping an Early or Late Process? 263 Development of Size Constancy 321
6.1.5 Past Experience 266 7.1.2 Size Illusions 322
6.2 Region Analysis 266 The Moon Illusion 322
6.2.1 Uniform Connectedness 268 The Ponzo Illusion 324
6.2.2 Region Segmentation 269 Illusions of Relative Size 325
Boundary-Based Approaches 270 Occlusion Illusions 326
Region-Based Approaches 271 7.2 Shape 327
Evidence from Stabilized Images 273 7.2.1 Shape Constancy 327
Parts and Parsing 274 Perspective Changes 327
6.2.3 Texture Segregation 275 Two-Dimensional Figures 328
Discovering the Features of Texture 276 Three-Dimensional Objects 329
Texture Segregation as a Parallel Development of Shape Constancy 331
Process 276 7.2.2 Shape Illusions 332
A Theory of Texture Segregation 277 7.3 Orientation 333
6.3 Figure/Ground Organization 280 7.3.1 Orientation Constancy 333
6.3.1 Principles of Figure/Ground 7.3.2 Orientation Illusions 336
Organization 281 Frames of Reference 336
6.3.2 Ecological Considerations 283 Geometric Illusions 337
6.3.3 Effects of Meaningfulness 284 7.4 Position 338
6.3.4 The Problem of Holes 285 7.4.1 Perception of Direction 338
6.4 Visual Interpolation 287 7.4.2 Position Constancy 339
6.4.1 Visual Completion 288 Indirect Theories of Position
Figural Familiarity Theories 289 Constancy 340
Figural Simplicity Theories 289 Direct Theories of Position
Ecological Constraint Theories 290 Constancy 341
6.4.2 Illusory Contours 292 7.4.3 Position Illusions 342
Relation to Visual Completion 293 7.5 Perceptual Adaptation 343
Physiological Basis of Illusory 7.6 Parts 348
Contours 294 7.6.1 Evidence for Perception of Parts 348
6.4.3 Perceived Transparency 296 Linguistic Evidence 348
6.4.4 Figural Scission 298
Phenomenological Demonstrations 349
6.4.5 The Principle of Nonaccidentalness 299 Perceptual Experiments 350
6.5 Multistability 300 7.6.2 Part Segmentation 351
6.5.1 Connectionist Network Models 301 Shape Primitives 351
6.5.2 Neural Fatigue 302 Boundary Rules 353
6.5.3 Eye Fixations 304 7.6.3 Global and Local Processing 354

Contents xii
 Global Precedence 355 Comparison Processes 414
Configural Orientation Effects 357 Decision Processes 414
Word, Object, and Configural 9.2 Phenomena of Perceptual Categorization 416
Superiority Effects 359 9.2.1 Categorical Hierarchies 416
Prototypes 417
Representing Shape and Structure 362 Basic-Level Categories 418
Entry-Level Categories 419
8.1 Shape Equivalence 363
9.2.2 Perspective Viewing Conditions 420
8.1.1 Defining Objective Shape 364
Canonical Perspective 421
8.1.2 Invariant Features 365
Priming Effects 424
8.1.3 Transformational Alignment 367
Orientation Effects 426
8.1.4 Object-Centered Reference Frames 368
9.2.3 Part Structure 427
Geometric Coordinate Systems 369
9.2.4 Contextual Effects 428
Perceptual Reference Frames 370
9.2.5 Visual Agnosia 431
Accounting for Failures of Shape
9.3 Theories of Object Categorization 433
Equivalence 371
9.3.1 Recognition by Components Theory 434
Orientation and Shape 373
Geons 434
Heuristics in Reference Frame
Nonaccidental Features 435
Selection 374
Geon Relations 436
8.2 Theories of Shape Representation 377
Stages of Object Categorization in
8.2.1 Templates 377
RBC 437
Strengths 378
A Neural Network Implementation 438
Weaknesses 379
9.3.2 Accounting for Empirical Phenomena 440
8.2.2 Fourier Spectra 383
Typicality Effects 440
Strengths 384
Entry-Level Categories 440
Weaknesses 384
Viewing Conditions 441
8.2.3 Features and Dimensions 385
Part Structures 442
Multidimensional Representations 387
Contextual Effects 442
Multifeatural Representations 390
Visual Agnosia 443
Strengths 391
Weaknesses 443
Weaknesses 392
9.3.3 Viewpoint-Specific Theories 444
8.2.4 Structural Descriptions 394
The Case for Multiple Views 444
Shape Primitives 396
Aspect Graphs 445
Strengths 397
Alignment with 3-D Models 448
Weaknesses 397
Alignment with 2-D View
8.3 Figural Goodness and Pragnanz 398
Combinations 448
8.3.1 Theories of Figural Goodness 399
Weaknesses 451
Classical Information Theory 399
9.4 Identifying Letters and Words 453
Rotation and Reflection Subsets 400
9.4.1 Identifying Letters 453
Symmetry Subgroups 401
9.4.2 Identifying Words and Letters Within
8.3.2 Structural Information Theory 402
Words 455
Primitive Codes 403
9.4.3 The Interactive Activation Model 458
Removing Redundancies 403
Feature Level 458
Information Load 404
Letter Level 458
Applications to Perceptual
Word Level 459
Organization 405
Word-to-Letter Feedback 460
Strengths 405
Problems 460
Weaknesses 405

Perceiving Function and Category 408

9.1 The Perception of Function 409 III Visual Dynamics 463
9.1.1 Direct Perception of Affordances 410
9.1.2 Indirect Perception of Function by 10 Perceiving Motion and Events 465
Categorization 413
10.1 Image Motion 466
Four Components of Categorization 413
10.1.1 The Computational Problem of
Motion 466

xiii Contents
 10.1.2 Continuous Motion 469 Launching, Triggering, and Entraining
Adaptation and Aftereffects 470 Events 513
Simultaneous Motion Contrast 470 Perceiving Mass Relations 514
The Autokinetic Effect 471 10.4.3 Intuitive Physics 515
10.1.3 Apparent Motion 471 Recognizing versus Generating
Early Gestalt Investigations 472 Answers 515
Motion Picture Technology 473 Particle versus Extended Body
The Correspondence Problem of Motion 517
Apparent Motion 474
Short-Range versus Long-Range 11 Visual Selection: Eye Movements and
Apparent Motion 477
Attention 519
The Aperture Problem 479
11.1 Eye Movements 520
10.1.4 Physiological Mechanisms 481
11.1.1 Types of Eye Movements 521
The Magno and Parvo Systems 481
Physiological Nystagmus 521
Cortical Analysis of Motion 482
Saccadic Movements 523
Neuropsychology of Motion
Smooth Pursuit Movements 524
Perception 483
Vergence Movements 525
10.1.5 Computational Theories 484
Vestibular Movements 525
Delay-and-Compare Networks 484
Optokinetic Movements 526
Edge-Based Models 485
11.1.2 The Physiology of the Oculomotor
Spatial-Frequency-Based Models 485
System 527
Integrating Local Motion 486
11.1.3 Saccadic Exploration of the Visual
10.2 Object Motion 487
Environment 528
10.2.1 Perceiving Object Velocity 487
Patterns of Fixations 528
10.2.2 Depth and Motion 488
Transsaccadic Integration 531
Rigid Motion in Depth 489
11.2 Visual Attention 531
The Kinetic Depth Effect 489
11.2.1 Early versus Late Selection 533
The Rigidity Heuristic and the
Auditory Attention 533
Correspondence Problem 490
The Inattention Paradigm 534
The Stereo-Kinetic Effect 491
The Attentional Blink 537
Perception of Nonrigid Motion 492
Change Blindness 538
10.2.3 Long-Range Apparent Motion 493
Intentionally Ignored Information 539
Apparent Rotation 493
11.2.2 Costs and Benefits of Attention 541
Curved Apparent Motion 495
The Attentional Cuing Paradigm 542
Conditions for Long-Range Apparent
Motion 497 Voluntary versus Involuntary Shifts of
Attention 543
10.2.4 Dynamic Perceptual Organization 498
Grouping by Movement 498 Three Components of Shifting
Attention 544
Configural Motion 499
11.2.3 Theories of Spatial Attention 544
Induced Motion 501
Kinetic Completion and Illusory The Spotlight Metaphor 545

Figures 502 The Zoom Lens Metaphor 546

Anorthoscopic Perception 502 Space-Based versus Object-Based

10.3 Self-Motion and Optic Flow 504 Approaches 547

10.3.1 Induced Motion of the Self 504 11.2.4 Selective Attention to Properties 549

Position and Orientation 504 The Stroop Effect 549

Balance and Posture 506 Integral versus Separable

10.3.2 Perceiving Self-Motion 506 Dimensions 550

Direction of Self-Motion 506 11.2.5 Distributed versus Focused

Speed of Self-Motion 509 Attention 554

Virtual Reality and Ecological Visual Pop-Out 554

Perception 510 Search Asymmetry 556

10.4 Understanding Events 511 11.2.6 Feature Integration Theory 556

10.4.1 Biological Motion 511 Conjunction Search 557

10.4.2 Perceiving Causation 513 Texture Segregation 558

Contents XIV
 Illusory Conjunctions 558 Image Size Effects 607
Problems with Feature Integration Mental Psychophysics 608
Theory 559 Reinterpreting Images 608
Object Files 561 12.2.4 Kosslyn’s Model of Imagery 609
11.2.7 The Physiology of Attention 563 12.2.5 The Relation of Imagery to
Unilateral Neglect 563 Perception 611
Balint’s Syndrome 565 Behavioral Evidence 611
Brain Imaging Studies 566 Neuropsychological Evidence 612
Electrophysiological Studies 567 Brain Imaging Studies 613
11.2.8 Attention and Eye Movements 568

13 Visual Awareness 615

12 Visual Memory and Imagery 572
13.1 Philosophical Foundations 618
12.1 Visual Memory 573 13.1.1 The Mind-Body Problem 618
12.1.1 Three Memory Systems 573 Dualism 618
12.1.2 Iconic Memory 575 Idealism 620
The Partial Report Procedure 575 Materialism 621
Duration 576 Behaviorism 621
Content 576 Functionalism 623
Maintenance 577 Supervenience 624
Loss 577 13.1.2 The Problem of Other Minds 624
Masking 578 Criteria for Consciousness 624
Persistence versus Processing 579 The Inverted Spectrum Argument 625
12.1.3 Visual Short-Term Memory 580 Phenomenological Criteria 627
Visual STM versus Iconic Memory 581 Behavioral Criteria 628
Visual STM versus Visual LTM 582 Physiological Criteria 629
The Visuo-Spatial Scratch Pad 584 Correlational versus Causal
Transsaccadic Memory 585 Theories 630
Conceptual Short-Term Memory 586 13.2 Neuropsychology of Visual Awareness 630
12.1.4 Visual Long-Term Memory 588 13.2.1 Split-Brain Patients 631
Three Types of LTM 588 13.2.2 Blindsight 633
Visual Routines 589 The Case History of D.B. 633
Recall versus Recognition 589 Accurate Guessing without Visual
How Good Is Episodic Visual Experience 634
LTM? 590 The Two Visual Systems
Visual Imagery as a Mnemonic Hypothesis 635
Device 591 Methodological Challenges 635
Dual Coding Theory 592 13.2.3 Unconscious Processing in Neglect and
Photographic Memory 593 Balint’s Syndrome 636
Mnemonists 594 13.2.4 Unconscious Face Recognition in
Neuropsychology of Visual Prosopagnosia 637
Memory 594 13.3 Visual Awareness in Normal Observers 638
12.1.5 Memory Dynamics 596 13.3.1 Perceptual Defense 638
Tendencies toward Goodness 596 13.3.2 Subliminal Perception 639
Effects of Verbal Labels 597 Marcel’s Experiments 639
The Misinformation Effect 597 Objective versus Subjective Thresholds of
Representational Momentum 601 Awareness 641
12.2 Visual Imagery 602 Functional Correlates of
12.2.1 The Analog/Propositional Debate 603 Consciousness 642
The Analog Position 603 13.3.3 Inattentional Blindsight 643
The Propositional Position 604 13.4 Theories of Consciousness 644
12.2.2 Mental Transformations 605 13.4.1 Functional Architecture Theories 645
Mental Rotation 605 The STM Hypothesis 645
Other Transformations 606 An Activation-Based Conception of
12.2.3 Image Inspection 607 STM 646
Image Scanning 607 The Attention Hypothesis 647

xv Contents
 Working Memory Theories 648 The Delta Rule 682
The 2.5-D Sketch Theory of The Generalized Delta Rule 683
Consciousness 649 B. 2.2 Gradient Descent 683
13.4.2 Biological Theories 649 Input Vector Space 683
Activation Thresholds 650 Partitioning the Input Vector Space 684
Duration Thresholds 651 State Space 684
The Cortical Hypothesis 651 Weight Space 685
The Crick/Koch Conjectures 652 Weight-Error Space 686
ERTAS: The Extended Reticular- Gradient Descent 686
Thalamic Activating System 654 Local versus Global Minima 686
Causal Theories of Consciousness: An
Analogy 655
13.4.3 Consciousness and the Limits of
Appendix C: Color Technology 689
Science 656 C.l Additive versus Subtractive Color Mixture 690
Relational Structure 657 C. 1.1 Adding versus Multiplying Spectra 691
The Isomorphism Constraint 658 C.l.2 Maxwell’s Color Triangle 691
Relation to Functionalism 659 C. 1.3 C.I.E. Color Space 692
Biology to the Rescue? 661 C.1.4 Subtractive Color Mixture Space? 693
C.2 Color Television 694
C.3 Paints and Dyes 696
Appendix A: Psychophysical Methods 665 C.3.1 Subtractive Combination of Paints 696
A. 1 Measuring Thresholds 665 C.3.2 Additive Combination of Paints 697
A. 1.1 Method of Adjustment 666 C.4 Color Photography 697
A. 1.2 Method of Limits 666 C.5 Color Printing 699
A. 1.3 Method of Constant Stimuli 666
A. 1.4 The Theoretical Status of Thresholds 667
A.2 Signal Detection Theory 668
Glossary 701
A.2.1 Response Bias 668 References 737
A.2.2 The Signal Detection Paradigm 668 Name Index 771
A.2.3 The Theory of Signal Detectability 669 Subject Index 780
A.3 Difference Thresholds 671
A.3.1 Just Noticeable Differences 671
A.3.2 Weber’s Law 671
A. 4 Psychophysical Scaling 672
A.4.1 Fechner’s Law 672
A. 4.2 Stevens’s Law 673

Appendix B: Connectionist Modeling 675

B. l Network Behavior 676
B. 1.1 Unit Behavior 677
Combining Input Activation 677
Determining Output Activation 678
B. 1.2 System Architecture 678
Feedforward Networks 678
Feedback Networks 678
Symmetric Networks 679
Winner-Take-All Networks 679
B. 1.3 Systemic Behavior 679
Graceful Degradation 679
Settling into a Stable State 680
Soft Constraint Satisfaction 680
Pattern Completion 680
B.2 Connectionist Learning Algorithms 681
B.2.1 Back Propagation 681

Contents xvi
Preface Writing this book has been a long and difficult under¬
taking. Because several good textbooks are available
that present the basic facts about vision in a clear and
readable fashion, the reader may wonder why I em¬
barked on this journey. Indeed, I often wonder myself!
It was not that I thought I could do a better job at what
these other books do. Truthfully, I doubt I could. It was
that I felt the need for a different kind of textbook, one
that accurately reflects the way most modern research
scientists think about vision. In fact, the scientific under¬
standing of visual perception has changed profoundly
over the past 25 years, and almost all the current text¬
books are still in the “old” mold in both structure and
content. New results are included, of course, but the
new approach to vision is not.
So what is this new approach? The change in the na¬
ture of visual research began in the 1970s, resulting
from the gradual emergence of an interdisciplinary field
that I will call vision science. It arose at the intersection
of several existing disciplines in which scientists were
concerned with image understanding: how the structure
of optical images was (or could be) processed to extract
useful information about the environment. Perceptual
psychologists, psychophysicists, computer scientists, neu¬
rophysiologists, and neuropsychologists who study vision
started talking and listening to each other at this time
because they began to recognize that they were working
on the same problem from different but compatible and
complementary perspectives. Vision science is a branch
of a larger interdisciplinary endeavor known as cogni¬
tive science that began at about the same time. Cog¬
nitive science is the study of all mental states and
processes—not just visual ones—from an even greater
variety of methodologically distinct fields, including not
only psychology, computer science, and neuroscience,
but also linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, sociology,
and others. In my own view, vision science is not just one
branch of cognitive science, but the single most co-
 herent, integrated, and successful branch of cognitive
science.
Central to this new approach is the idea that vision is
a kind of computation. In living organisms, it occurs in
eyes and brains through complex neural information
processing, but it can, at least in theory, also take place
when information from video cameras is fed to properly
programmed digital computers. This idea has had an
important unifying effect on the study of vision, en¬
abling psychologists, computer scientists, and physiolo¬
gists to relate their findings to each other in the common
language of computation. Vision researchers from dis¬
parate fields now read and cite each other’s work regu¬
larly, participate in interdisciplinary conferences, and
collaborate on joint research projects. Indeed, the study
of vision is rapidly becoming a unified field in which
the boundaries between the component disciplines have
become largely transparent.
This interdisciplinary convergence has dominated the
cutting edge of vision research for more than two dec¬
ades, but it is curiously underrepresented or even absent
in most modern textbooks about perception. One reason
is that most textbooks that cover vision also include
hearing, taste, touch, and smell. With the exception of
hearing, the computational approach has not yet gained
a firm foothold in these other sensory modalities. The
attempt to provide a consistent framework for research
in all modalities thus precludes using the computational
approach so dominant in vision research.
Another reason the computational approach to vision
has not been well represented in textbooks is that its
essential core is theoretical, and introductory textbook
authors tend to shy away from theory. The reasons are
several, having to do partly with many authors’ lack of
computational background, partly with the difficulty of
presenting complex quantitative theories clearly without
overwhelming the reader, and partly with students’ de¬
sire to learn only things that are “right.” In the final
analysis, all phenomena are “right,” and all theories
(except one) are presumably “wrong”—although some
are “wronger” than others. Students are understandably
wary of expending much effort on learning a theory that
is surely flawed in some way or other. Such consid¬
erations have led to a generation of textbooks that are as
theoretically neutral as possible, usually by being as
atheoretical as possible. But the importance of theories
in science lies not so much in their ultimate truth or
Preface
falsity as in the crucial role they play in understanding
known phenomena and in predicting new ones. Given
that we have few, if any, truly adequate theories in
vision science yet, virtually every insight we have into
known phenomena and every predicted new one have
been generated by incorrect theories! They are, quite
simply, an essential component of vision science.
In this book I have therefore taken the position that it
is just as important for students of vision to understand
theories as to know about phenomena. Most chapters
include a healthy dose of theory, and some (e.g., Chap¬
ters 2 and 8) are almost entirely theoretical. But I have
tried to do more than simply catalog bits and pieces of
existing theory; I have tried to present a theoretical syn¬
thesis that is internally consistent and globally coherent.
This is a tall order, to be sure, for the classical theories
of visual perception seem so different as to be diametri¬
cally opposed. Structuralist theory, for example, claimed
that wholes are nothing but associations of elementary
parts, whereas Gestalt theory championed the primacy
of wholes over parts. Helmholtz’s theory of unconscious
inference claimed that vision is mediated by thoughtlike
deductions, whereas Gibson’s ecological theory coun¬
tered that perception is direct and unmediated. How
can a theoretically coherent position be fashioned from
such diverse and contradictory components? I do not
claim to have succeeded completely in this synthesis, for
I do have to deny some important tenets of certain posi¬
tions. But not many. Much has been made of differences
that are more apparent than real, and I believe that the
computational approach presented in this book can span
the vast majority of them without strain. The strong
form of Gibson’s claim for direct perception is an ex¬
ception, but weaker forms of this view are quite com¬
patible with the computational view taken in this book,
as I explain in Chapter 2.
The unified theoretical viewpoint I present is not so
much my own theory as my construction of what I think
of as the current “modal theory.” Experts on vision will
naturally find aspects of it to which they take exception,
but I believe the vast majority will find it consistent with
most of their firmly held beliefs. The theoretical frame¬
work I advocate owes much to the influential proposals
of the late David Marr and his colleagues at MIT, but
this is true of the field in general. In many cases, I have
generalized Marr’s specific proposals to make clear how
his own detailed theories were examples of a more gen-
xviii
eral framework into which a variety of other specific
theories fit quite comfortably. Even so, I do not consider
the view I describe as exclusively or even primarily
Marr’s; it owes just as much to classical perceptual theo¬
rists such as Helmholtz, Wertheimer, Gibson, and Rock.
The interweaving of such diverse theoretical ideas is not
difficult to achieve, provided one avoids divisive dogma
and instead concentrates on the positive contributions of
each view.
Because the book is much more theoretical and inter¬
disciplinary than most perception textbooks, it is corre¬
spondingly longer and more difficult. It is designed for
an upper division undergraduate course or an entry-level
graduate course on vision, most likely as part of a pro¬
gram of study in psychology, cognitive science, or op¬
tometry. I have tried to explain both theories and
phenomena clearly enough to be understood by intelli¬
gent, motivated students with no prior background in
the field of vision. I do presume that readers have some
basic understanding of behavioral experiments, com¬
puter programming, and neurobiology. Those who are
unfamiliar with this material may find certain portions
of the text more difficult and have to work harder as a
result, but the technical prerequisites are intended to be
relatively few and low-level, mainly high school geome¬
try and algebra.
Despite the strongly interdisciplinary nature of this
book, it is written primarily from a psychological per¬
spective. The reason is simply that I am a psychologist
by training, and no matter how seriously I have read the
literature in computer vision and visual neuroscience,
the core of my viewpoint is still psychological. In keep¬
ing with this perspective, I have avoided presenting the
complex mathematical details that would be central to a
computer scientist’s presentation of the same topics and
the biological details that would figure prominently in a
neuroscientist’s presentation. By the same token, I have
included details of experimental methods and results
that they might well have omitted by nonpsychologists.
Vision science may have made the boundaries between
disciplines more transparent, but it has not eliminated
them. Psychologists still perform experiments on sighted
organisms, computer scientists still write programs that
extract and transform optical information, and neuro¬
scientists still study the structure and function of the
visual nervous system. Such methodological differences
will not disappear. Indeed, they should not disappear,
XIX
because they are precisely what makes an interdisciplin¬
ary approach desirable. What is needed is a group of
vision scientists who are well versed in all these dis¬
ciplines. It is my sincere hope that this book will help
create such a community of scientists.
In addition to being used as a textbook, I hope that
this book will be useful as a reference text for members
of the expanding vision science community. Although
the sections describing one’s own field of specialization
may seem elementary, the rest of the book can provide
useful background material and relatively sophisticated
introductions to other areas of vision research. The cov¬
erage is not intended to be at the same level as a profes¬
sional handbook, in which each chapter is expected to
be a definitive treatment of a specific topic written by a
world-class expert for an audience of other experts, but
it is also more accessible and internally consistent than
any handbook I have ever seen. It is therefore particu¬
larly useful for someone who wants to get a global view
of vision science—the “lay of the land,” if you will—
within which the focused chapters that one finds in pro¬
fessional handbooks will fit comfortably and make more
sense.
Organization of the Book
Because the aim of this book is to integrate material
across disciplines, each chapter includes findings from
many different approaches. There is no “physiology
chapter,” no “psychophysics chapter,” no “devel¬
opmental chapter,” no “neuropsychology chapter,” and
no “computational chapter” in which the separate and
often conflicting mini-views within each of these dis¬
ciplines can be conveniently described in isolation. I
have avoided this approach because it compartmental¬
izes knowledge, blocking the kind of synthesis that I am
trying to achieve and that I view as essential for progress
in the field. Rather, the topic of each chapter is discussed
from the perspectives of all relevant disciplines, some¬
times including those that writers of textbooks on vision
traditionally ignore, such as computer science, philoso¬
phy, and linguistic anthropology. Even within the more
standard visual disciplines, the coverage is not uniform
because the distribution of knowledge is not uniform.
We know a great deal more about the physiology of
early image processing, for example, than we do about
the physiology of categorization and visual imagery.
Preface
This unevenness is merely a reflection of the current
state of understanding.
The overall organization of the book is defined by
its three parts: Foundations, Spatial Vision, and Visual
Dynamics.
Foundations. The Foundations section covers a basic
introduction to the interdisciplinary science of vision.
Chapter 1 introduces the problem of visual perception
and sets forth an interdisciplinary framework for ap¬
proaching it. It covers many of the most important
perceptual, optical, and physiological facts on which
vision is based. Chapter 2 then discusses theoretical
approaches to vision from an historical perspective. It
covers the classical theories of vision as well as the infor¬
mation processing (or computational) approach, includ¬
ing several important proposals from the work of the
late David Marr (1982) that play a large role in defining
the superstructure of the rest of the book. The key idea
is that visual perception can be analyzed into a sequence
of four basic stages: one that deals with extracting image
structure (Marr’s “primal sketch”), one that deals with
recovering surfaces in depth (Marr’s “2.5-D sketch”),
one that deals with describing 3-D objects (Marr’s “vol¬
umetric descriptions”), and one that deals with identify¬
ing objects in terms of known categories. This sequence
of processes—which I call image-based, surface-based, object-
based, and category-based—is then traced for each of the
major topics covered in the book: color, space, and mo¬
tion perception. The final chapter of the Foundations
section, Chapter 3, is a long but important one. It tells
“the color story,” which spans vision science from the
physiology of retinal receptors to the linguistic analysis
of color names in different cultures of the world. Its
importance derives from the fact that the current under¬
standing of color processing illustrates better than any
other single example in all of cognitive science why an
integrated, interdisciplinary approach is necessary for a
complete understanding of a perceptual domain.
Spatial Vision. Chapters 4 through 9 cover spatial
perception as a sequence of processes: extracting image
structure (Chapter 4), recovering oriented surfaces in
depth (Chapter 5), organizing perception into coherent
objects (Chapter 6), perceiving object properties and
parts (Chapter 7), representing shape (Chapter 8), and
identifying objects as members of known categories
Preface
(Chapter 9). This material on spatial processing of im¬
ages is the heart and soul of classical visual perception.
Because it is much more complex than color processing,
we understand it much less well. It is hard at times not to
be overwhelmed by the mountains of facts and frus¬
trated at the lack of good theory, but I believe we are
beginning to get some clearer notion of how this all fits
together.
Visual Dynamics. The final section concerns percep¬
tual dynamics: how visual perception and its aftereffects
change over time. Perception of motion and events is
the first topic considered (Chapter 10), being essentially
an extension of spatial perception to the domain of
space-time. Then we discuss ways in which the visual
system selects different information over time by making-
overt eye movements and covert attentional adjustments
(Chapter 11). Next we consider memory for visual infor¬
mation within a multistore framework—iconic memory,
short-term visual memory, and long-term visual mem¬
ory—and examine how such stored information can be
reconstructed and transformed in visual imagery (Chap¬
ter 12). Finally, Chapter 13 takes up what is perhaps the
most fascinating of all topics: the nature of visual
awareness (and its absence in certain neurological syn¬
dromes) and various attempts at explaining it. This topic
is very much on the cutting edge of modern vision sci¬
ence and is finally getting the attention that it deserves.
Tailoring the Book to Different Needs
Because the book contains more topics and material
than can comfortably fit into any single-term under¬
graduate course, instructors are encouraged to be selec¬
tive in using it. I have included too much rather than too
little because I find it easier to skip what I do not want to
cover in a single unified textbook than to find external
readings that cover the desired material at an appropri¬
ate level and in a framework that is compatible with the
main textbook—a nearly impossible task, I have found.
There are several ways of tailoring the present book
to different needs. Most obviously, certain chapters can
be skipped in their entirety. For example, if color is not
a high priority, Chapter 3 can be omitted with only
minor ramifications for later chapters. Chapter 10 on
motion perception is likewise reasonably independent of
the rest of the book. For courses that are restricted to
xx
classical visual perception, Chapter 11 on eye move¬
ments and attention and Chapter 12 on memory and
imagery are probably the least relevant. A course em¬
phasizing high-level vision can reasonably omit Chapter
4 on image-based processing.
Another approach to selective coverage is omitting
subsections within chapters. For traditional courses on
the psychology of vision, the sections on computational
theory and other technical material may be eliminated
or assigned as optional. (One effective approach I have
used is to teach an honors section of the course for addi¬
tional credit in which the more difficult material is
required and other sections for which it is not.) Elimi¬
nating this material has the advantages of making the
book substantially shorter and easier to understand for
students with less technical backgrounds. The devel¬
opmental sections can also generally be omitted without
much affecting the book’s continuity and cohesion.
For students with strong scientific backgrounds who
are highly motivated to learn about modern vision
science, I encourage instructors to use as much of the
book as possible. It is perfectly reasonable, for example,
to cover the entire book in a graduate course on vision
that lasts a full semester.
Acknowledgments
There are many people I wish to thank for helping me in
various phases of writing this book. First and foremost, I
gratefully acknowledge my debt to my late colleague
and friend, Irvin Rock, to whom this book is dedicated.
Irv not only taught me about perception in his own gen¬
tle, probing, inimitable way, but he also read and com¬
mented on earlier drafts of the first nine chapters before
his death in 1995. Moreover, his 1975 textbook An Intro¬
duction to Perception served as a model for this one in cer¬
tain important ways. In that book, Irv tried to present
the phenomena of visual perception at an introductory
level yet within a coherent and principled theoretical
view of perception as a problem solving process. While
it was still in print, it was my favorite perception text,
and I know that some instructors continue to use it in
photocopied readers to this day.
Irv’s influence on this book has been substantial, as
careful readers will surely discover. Had he lived, I be¬
lieve his continued contributions would have improved
it further and kept me from making some mistakes I
xxi
doubtless have made in his absence. After Irv’s death,
Arien Mack, one of Irv’s most distinguished students
and collaborators, became my primary reviewer for the
remaining chapters of the book. One or the other of
them has read and commented on every chapter.
Many other experts in vision science have also read
more limited portions of the book, either at my own
request or at that of MIT Press, and provided valuable
comments on material in their specialty areas. I wish to
thank the following scholars, plus several anonymous re¬
viewers, for the time and effort they spent in evaluating
portions of the manuscript:
Chapter 1: Irvin Rock, Jack Gallant, Paul Kube
Chapter 2: Irvin Rock, James Cutting, Ulric Neisser,
Paul Kube, Jitendra Malik, and an anonymous re¬
viewer
Chapter 3: Irvin Rock, Karen DeValois, Alan Gilchrist,
C. Lawrence Hardin, Paul Kay, and an anonymous
reviewer
Chapter 4: Irvin Rock, Jitendra Malik, Jack Gallant,
Ken Nakayama, and an anonymous reviewer
Chapter 5: Irvin Rock, Jitendra Malik, Ken Nakayama,
and an anonymous reviewer
Chapter 6: Irvin Rock, Jitendra Malik, and Michael
Kubovy
Chapter 7: Irvin Rock, Arien Mack, and an anonymous
reviewer
Chapter 8: Irvin Rock, John Hummel, and an anony¬
mous reviewer
Chapter 9: Irvin Rock, John Hummel, and an anony¬
mous reviewer
Chapter 10: Arien Mack, James Cutting, Dennis Prof¬
fitt, and an anonymous reviewer
Chapter 11: Arien Mack, Michael Posner, Anne Treis-
man, and William Prinzmetal
Chapter 12: Arien Mack and Martha Farah
Chapter 13: Arien Mack, Alison Gopnik, John Watson,
Bruce Mangan, Bernard Baars, and C. Lawrence
Hardin
Appendix A: Ken Nakayama and Ervin Hafter
Appendix B: John Kruschke and Jerome Leldman
Appendix C: Alan Gilchrist
Several students, postdoctoral fellows, and visitors in
my lab have also taken the time to comment on various
portions of the book. Without differentiating among
chapters, I wish to thank Daniel Levitin, Elisabeth Pa-
Preface
 chiere, Joel Norman, Akira Shimaya, Diane Beck, Justin
Beck, Sheryl Ehrlich, Craig Fox, Jonathan Neff, Charles
Schreiber, and Christopher Stecker for their helpful
comments. In addition, I would like to thank Christo¬
pher Linnett, Sheryl Ehrlich, Diane Beck, Thomas
Leung, William Prinzmetal, Gregory Larson for doing
some of the more complex and technical illustra¬
tions, Lisa Hamilton for working on design issues, and
Richard Powers for improving my work environment.
For their help in copy editing and preparing the final
manuscript for production, I would like to thank Bar¬
bara Willette and Peggy Gordon, respectively. Last, but
not least, I must thank Edward Hubbard for his tireless
help in tracking down references, obtaining permission
to reprint figures, checking page proofs, and generally
overseeing the final stages of preparing the manuscript
for publication.
This book took a long time to write—certainly a good
deal longer than I had planned or than I would like to
admit—and its writing put a significant strain on all
other aspects of my life. During this time, many people
have contributed emotional support and understanding,
for which they are due both thanks for their help and
apologies for the time this project has stolen from them.
They include Paul Harris, Stephen Forsling, David
Shiver, and Andy Utiger, as well as Linda, Emily, and
Nathan Palmer.

Preface XXII
 Part I

Foundations
 1.1 Visual Perception
An Introduction to Vision
Science
1.2 Optical Information
1.3 Visual Systems
1.1.1 Defining Visual Perception
1.1.2 The Evolutionary Utility of Vision
1.1.3 Perception as a Constructive Act
Adaptation and Aftereffects
Reality and Illusion
Ambiguous Figures
1.1.4 Perception as Modeling the Environment
Visual Completion
Impossible Objects
Predicting the Future
1.1.5 Perception as Apprehension of Meaning
Classification
Attention and Consciousness
1.2.1 The Behavior of Light
Illumination
Interaction with Surfaces
The Ambient Optic Array
1.2.2 The Formation of Images
Optical Images
Projective Geometry
Perspective and Orthographic Projection
1.2.3 Vision as an “Inverse” Problem
1.3.1 The Human Eye
Eye and Brain
Anatomy of the Eye
Physiological Optics
1.3.2 The Retina
Neurons
Photoreceptors
Peculiarities of Retinal Design
Pathways to the Brain
1.3.3 Visual Cortex
Localization of Function
Occipital Cortex
Parietal and Temporal Cortex
Mapping Visual Cortex
The Physiological Pathways Hypothesis
Most of us take completely for granted our ability to
see the world around us. How we do it seems no great
mystery: We just open our eyes and look! When we do,
we perceive a complex array of meaningful objects
located in three-dimensional space. For example,
Figure 1.1.1 shows a typical scene on the Berkeley
campus of the University of California: some students
walking through Sather Gate, with trees and the distinc¬
tive Campanile bell tower in the background. We per¬
ceive all this so quickly and effortlessly that it is hard to
imagine there being anything very complicated about it.
Yet, when viewed critically as an ability that must be
explained, visual perception is so incredibly complex
that it seems almost a miracle that we can do it at all.
The rich fabric of visual experience that results from Figure 1.1.1 A real-world scene on the Berkeley campus.
viewing natural scenes like the one in Figure 1.1.1 arises Viewers perceive students walking near Sather Gate with the
when the neural tissues at the back of the eyes are Campanile bell tower behind a row of trees, even though none of
these objects are visible in their entirety. Perception must some¬
stimulated by a two-dimensional pattern of light that in¬
how infer the bottom of the bell tower, the trees behind the gate
cludes only bits and pieces of the objects being per¬
towers, and the far sides of all these objects from the parts that are
ceived. Most of the Campanile, for example, is hidden visible.
behind the trees, and parts of the trees are occluded by
the towers of the gate. We don’t perceive the Campanile
• How do we know what the objects that we see are for?
as floating in the air or the trees as having tower-shaped
• How can we tell whether we are moving relative to
holes cut in them where we cannot currently see them.
objects in the environment or they are moving relative
Even objects that seem to be fully visible, such as the
to us?
gate towers and the students, can be seen only in part
because their far sides are occluded by their near sides. • Do newborn babies see the world in the same way we
How, then, are we able so quickly and effortlessly to do?
perceive the meaningful, coherent, three-dimensional • Can people “see” without being aware of what they
scene that we obviously do experience from the incom¬ see?
plete, two-dimensional pattern of light that enters our
Posing such questions is just the first step of our jour¬
eyes?
ney, however, for we must then try to find the answers.
This is the fundamental question of vision, and the
The majority of this book will be devoted to describing
rest of this book is an extended inquiry into its answer
how vision scientists do this and what they have
from a scientific point of view. It is no accident that I
discovered about seeing as a result. It turns out that
began the book with a question, for the first step in any
different parts of the answers come from a variety
scientific enterprise is asking questions about things that
of different disciplines—biology, psychology, computer
are normally taken for granted. Many more questions
science, neuropsychology, linguistics, and cognitive an¬
will prove to be important in the course of our dis¬
thropology—all of which are part of the emerging field
cussions. A few of them are listed here:
of cognitive science. The premise of cognitive science
• Why do objects appear colored? is that the problems of cognition will be solved more
• How can we determine whether an object is large and quickly and completely by attacking them from as many
distant or small and close? perspectives as possible.

• How do we perceive which regions in a visual image The modern study of vision certainly fits this in¬

are parts of the same object? terdisciplinary mold. It is rapidly becoming a tightly
integrated field at the intersection of many related

Chapter 1 4
disciplines, each of which provides different pieces of Retina
the jigsaw puzzle. This interdisciplinary field, which I
will call vision science, is part of cognitive science. In
this book, I try to convey a sense of the excitement that
it is generating among the scientists who study vision
and of the promise that it holds for reaching a new
understanding about how we see.
In this initial chapter, I will set the stage for the rest of
the book by providing an introductory framework for
understanding vision in terms of three domains:

1. phenomena of visual perception,

2. the nature of optical information, and

3. the physiology of the visual nervous system.

The view presented in this book is that an understanding
of all three domains and the relations among them is
required to explain vision. In the first section of this
chapter, we will consider the nature of visual perception
itself from an evolutionary perspective, asking what it is
for. We will define it, talk about some of its most salient
Figure 1.1.2 The eye-camera analogy. The eye is much like
a camera in the nature of its optics: Both form an upside-down
image by admitting light through a variable-sized opening and
focusing it on a two-dimensional surface using a transparent lens.
visual experiences are like. Before we go any further,

properties, and examine its usefulness in coupling however, we ought to have an explicit definition.

organisms to their environments for survival. Next, we

will consider the nature of optical information, because
all vision ultimately rests on the structure of light re¬
flected into the eyes from surfaces in the environment.
Finally, we will describe the physiology of the part of the
nervous system that underlies our ability to see. The eyes
are important, to be sure, but just as crucial are huge
portions of the brain, much of which vision scientists are
only beginning to understand. In each domain, the
coverage in this introductory chapter will be rudimen¬
tary and incomplete. But it is important to realize from
the very beginning that only by understanding all three
domains and the relations among them can we achieve
a full and satisfying scientific explanation of what it
means to see. What we learn here forms the scaffold
onto which we can fit the more detailed presentations in
later chapters.
1.1.1 Defining Visual Perception
In the context of this book, visual perception will be
defined as the process of acquiring knowledge about en¬
vironmental objects and events by extracting informa¬
tion from the light they emit or reflect. Several aspects
of this definition are worth noting:
1. Visual perception concerns the acquisition of knowledge.
This means that vision is fundamentally a cognitive
activity (from the Latin cognoscere, meaning to know or
learn), distinct from purely optical processes such as
photographic ones. Certain physical similarities between
cameras and eyes suggest that perception is analogous to
taking a picture, as illustrated in Figure 1.1.2. There are
indeed important similarities between eyes and cameras
in terms of optical phenomena, as we will see in Section
1.2, but there are no similarities whatever in terms
of perceptual phenomena. Cameras have no perceptual

1.1 Visual Perception
Until now, I have been taking for granted that you know
what I mean by “visual perception.” I do so in large part
because I assume that you are reading the words on this
page using your own eyes and therefore know what
capabilities at all; that is, they do not know anything
about the scenes they record. Photographic images
merely contain information, whereas sighted people and
animals acquire knowledge about their environments. It
is this knowledge that enables perceivers to act appro¬
priately in a given situation.

5 An Introduction to Vision Science

2. The knowledge achieved by visual perception con¬
cerns objects and events in the environment. Perception is not
merely about an observer’s subjective visual experiences,
because we would not say that even highly detailed
hallucinations or visual images would count as visual
perception. We will, in fact, be very interested in the
nature of people’s subjective experience—particularly
in Chapter 13 when we discuss visual awareness in
detail—but it is part of visual perception only when it
signifies something about the nature of external reality.
3. Visual knowledge about the environment is obtained
by extracting information. This aspect of our definition
implies a certain “metatheoretical” approach to under¬
standing visual perception and cognition, one that is
based on the concept of information and how it is pro¬
cessed. We will discuss this information processing
approach more fully in Chapter 2, but for now suffice it
to say that it is an approach that allows vision scientists
to talk about how people see in the same terms as they
talk about how computers might be programmed to see.
Again, we will have more to say about the prospects for
sighted computers in Chapter 13 when we discuss the
problem of visual awareness.
4. The information that is processed in visual percep¬
tion comes from the light that is emitted or rflected by ob¬
jects. Optical information is the foundation of all vision.
It results from the way in which physical surfaces inter¬
act with light in the environment. Because this re¬
structuring of light determines what information about
objects is available for vision in the first place, it is the
appropriate starting point for any systematic analysis of
vision (Gibson, 1950). As we will see in Section 1.2, most
of the early problems in understanding vision arise from
the difficulty of undoing what happens when light
projects from a three-dimensional world onto the two-
dimensional surfaces at the back of the eyes. The study
of what information is contained in these projected
images is therefore an important frontier of research in
vision science, one that computational theorists are con¬
stantly exploring to find new sources of information that
vision might employ.
1.1.2 The Evolutionary Utility of Vision
Now that we have considered what visual perception is,
we should ask what it is for. Given its biological impor¬
tance to a wide variety of animals, the answer must be
Chapter 1
that vision evolved to aid in the survival and successful reproduc¬
tion of organisms. Desirable objects and situations—such
as nourishing food, protective shelter, and desirable
mates—must be sought out and approached. Danger¬
ous objects and situations—such as precipitous drops,
falling objects, and hungry or angry predators—must be
avoided or fled from. Thus, to behave in an evolution-
arily adaptive manner, we must somehow get informa¬
tion about what objects are present in the world around
us, where they are located, and what opportunities they
afford us. All of the senses—seeing, hearing, touching,
tasting, and smelling—participate in this endeavor.
There are some creatures for which nonvisual senses
play the dominant role—such as hearing in the naviga¬
tion of bats—but for homo sapiens, as well as for many
other species, vision is preeminent. The reason is that
vision provides spatially accurate information from a
distance. It gives a perceiver highly reliable information
about the locations and properties of environmental ob¬
jects while they are safely distant. Hearing and smell
sometimes provide information from even greater dis¬
tances, but they are seldom as accurate in identifying
and locating objects, at least for humans. Touch and
taste provide the most direct information about certain
properties of objects because they operate only when the
objects are actually in contact with our bodies, but they
provide no information at all from farther distances.
Evolutionarily speaking, visual perception is useful
only if it is reasonably accurate. If the information in
light were insufficient to tell one object from another or
to know where they are in space, vision never would
have evolved to the exquisite level it has in humans. In
fact, light is an enormously rich source of environmental
information, and human vision exploits it to a high
degree. Indeed, vision is useful precisely because it is so
accurate. By and large, what you see is what you get. When
this is true, we have what is called veridical percep¬
tion (from the Latin veridicus meaning to say truthfully):
perception that is consistent with the actual state of af¬
fairs in the environment. This is almost always the case
with vision, and it is probably why we take vision so
completely for granted. It seems like a perfectly clear
window onto reality. But is it really?
In the remainder of this section, I will argue that per¬
ception is not a clear window onto reality, but an actively
constructed, meaningful model of the environment that
allows perceivers to predict what will happen in the
6
future so that they can take appropriate action and few. These changes in visual experience show that visual
thereby increase their chances of survival. In making perception is not always a clear window onto reality be¬
this argument, we will touch on several of the most cause we have different visual experiences of the same
important phenomena of visual perception, ones to physical environment at different stages of adaptation.
which we will return at various points later in this book. What changes over time is our visual system, not the
environment. Even so, one could sensibly argue that
1.1.3 Perception as a Constructive Act
although some things may fail to be perceived because
of adaptation, whatever is perceived is an accurate
The first issue that we must challenge is whether what
reflection of reality. This modified view can be shown
you see is necessarily what you get: Is visual perception
to be incorrect, however, by another result of prolonged
unerringly veridical? This question is important because
or very intense stimulation: the existence of visual
the answer will tell us whether or not vision should be
aftereffects.
conceived as a “clear window onto reality.”
When someone takes a picture of you with a flash,
you first experience a blinding blaze of light. This is a
Adaptation and Aftereffects. One kind of evidence
veridical perception, but it is followed by a prolonged
that visual experience is not a clear window onto reality
experience of a dark spot where you saw the initial flash.
is provided by the fact that visual perception changes
This afterimage is superimposed on whatever else you
over time as it adapts to particular conditions. When
look at for the next few minutes, altering your subse¬
you first enter a darkened movie theater on a bright af¬
quent visual experiences so that you see something that
ternoon, for instance, you cannot see much except the
is not there. Clearly, this is not veridical perception be¬
images on the screen. After just a few minutes, however,
cause the afterimage lasts long after the physical flash is
you can see the people seated near you, and after 20 mi¬
gone.
nutes or so, you can see the whole theater surprisingly
Not all aftereffects make you see things that are not
well. This increase in sensitivity to light is called dark
there; others cause you to misperceive properties of
adaptation. The theater walls and distant people were
visible objects. Figure 1.1.3 shows an example called
there all along; you just could not see them at first be¬
an orientation aftereffect. First, examine the two
cause your visual system was not sensitive enough.
striped gratings on the right to convince yourself that
Another everyday example of dark adaptation arises
they are vertical and identical to each other. Then look
in gazing at stars. When you leave a brightly lit room to
at the two tilted gratings on the left for about a minute
go outside on a cloudless night, the stars at first may
by fixating on the bar between them and moving your
seem disappointingly dim and few in number. After you
gaze back and forth along it. Then look at the square
have been outside for just a few minutes, however, they
between the two gratings on the right. The top grating
appear considerably brighter and far more numerous.
now looks tilted to the left, and the bottom one looks
And after 20-30 minutes, you see the heavens awash
tilted to the right. These errors in perception are further
with thousands of stars that you could not see at first.
evidence that what you see results from an interaction
The reason is not that the stars emit more light as you
between the external world and the present state of your
continue to gaze at them, but that your visual system has
visual nervous system.
become more sensitive to the light that they do emit.
Adaptation is a very general phenomenon in visual
Reality and Illusion. There are many other cases of
perception. As we will see in many later chapters, visual
systematically nonveridical perceptions, usually called
experience becomes less intense1 as a result of prolonged
illusions. One particularly striking example with which
exposure to a wide variety of different kinds of stimula¬
you may already be familiar is the moon illusion. You
tion: color, orientation, size, and motion, to name just a

1 It may be confusing that during dark adaptation the visual system during dark adaptation the visual system is, in a sense, becoming less sen-
becomes more sensitive to light rather than less. This apparent difference sitive to the dark.
from other forms of adaptation can be eliminated if you realize that

7 An Introduction to Vision Science

 Which horizontal Which horizontal Are the long lines
line is longer? line is longer? parallel or tilted?
\i y \i 1/
\\ // \\ /
>-< \\
\\
\\
//
//
//
\\
\\
w
/
/
/
\\ // \\ /
\\ // \\ /
\\ // w /

<-> \\
\\
\\ //
//
//
\\
w
\\ /
/
/
X A X A
A C

Do the diagonal lines Which central circle

line up or not?

Figure 1.1.3 An orientation aftereffect. Run your eyes along
the central bar between the gratings on the left for 30-60
seconds. Then look at the square between the two identical gra¬
tings on the right. The upper grating should now appear tilted to
the left of vertical and the lower grating tilted to the right.
D
Figure 1.1.4 Visual illusions. Although they do not appear to
be so, the two arrow shafts are the same length in A, the horizon¬
tal lines are identical in B, the long lines are vertical in C, the di¬
agonal lines are collinear in D, and the middle circles are equal in
size in E.

these are illustrated in Figure 1.1.4. The two arrow

have probably noticed that the moon looks much larger
when it is close to the horizon than it does when it is
high in the night sky. Have you ever thought about why?
Many people think that it is due to refractive dis¬
tortions introduced by the atmosphere. Others suppose
that it is due to the shape of the moon’s orbit. In fact, the
optical size of the moon is entirely constant throughout
its journey across the sky. You can demonstrate this by
taking a series of photographs as the moon rises; the size
of its photographic image will not change in the slight¬
est. It is only our perception of the moon’s size that
changes. In this respect, it is indeed an illusion—a non-
veridical perception—because its image in our eyes does
not change size any more than it does in the photo¬
graphs. In Chapter 7, we will discuss in detail why the
moon illusion occurs (Kaufman & Rock, 1962; Rock &
Kaufman, 1962). For right now, the important thing is
just to realize that our perception of the apparent differ¬
ence in the moon’s size at different heights in the night
sky is illusory.
There are many other illusions demonstrating that
visual perception is less than entirely accurate. Some of
shafts in A are actually equal in length; the horizontal
lines in B are actually the same size; the long lines in C
are actually vertical and parallel; the diagonal lines in
D are actually collinear; and the two central circles in E
are actually equal in size. In each case, our visual system
is somehow fooled into making perceptual errors about
seemingly obvious properties of simple line drawings.
These illusions support the conclusion that perception is
indeed fallible and therefore cannot be considered a
clear window onto external reality. The reality that
vision provides must therefore be, at least in part, a con¬
struction by the visual system that results from the way
it processes information in light. As we shall see, the
nature of this construction implies certain hidden as¬
sumptions, of which we have no conscious knowledge,
and when these assumptions are untrue, illusions result.
This topic will appear frequently in various forms
throughout this book, particularly in Chapter 7.
It is easy to get so carried away by illusions that one
starts to think of visual perception as grossly inaccurate
and unreliable. This is a mistake. As we said earlier,

Chapter 1 8
vision is evolutionary useful to the extent that it is
accurate—or, rather, as accurate as it needs to be. Even
illusory perceptions are quite accurate in most respects.
For instance, there really are two short horizontal lines
and two long oblique ones in Figure 1.1.4B, none of
which touch each other. The only aspect that is in¬
accurately perceived is the single illusory property—the
relative lengths of the horizontal lines—and the dis¬
crepancy between perception and reality is actually
quite modest. Moreover, illusions such as these are not
terribly obvious in everyday life; they occur most fre¬
quently in books about perception.
All things considered, then, it would be erroneous to
believe that the relatively minor errors introduced by
vision overshadow its evolutionary usefulness. More¬
over, we will later consider the possibility that the per¬
ceptual errors produced by these illusions may actually
be relatively harmless side effects of the same processes
that produce veridical perception under ordinary cir¬
cumstances (see Chapters 5 and 7). The important point
for the present discussion is that the existence of illusions
proves convincingly that perception is not just a simple
registration of objective reality. There is a great deal
more to it than that.
Once the lesson of illusions has been learned, it is
easier to see that there is really no good reason why per¬
ception should be a clear window onto reality. The ob¬
jects that we so effortlessly perceive are not the direct
cause of our perceptions. Rather, perceptions
caused by the two-dimensional patterns of light that
stimulate our eyes. (To demonstrate the truth of this
assertion, just close your eyes. The objects are still
present, but they no longer give rise to visual experi¬
ences.) To provide us with information about the three-
dimensional environment, vision must therefore
an interpretive process that somehow transforms
complex, moving, two-dimensional patterns of light at
the back of the eyes into stable perceptions of three-
dimensional objects in three-dimensional space. We
must therefore conclude that the objects we perceive are
actually interpretations based on the structure of images
rather than direct registrations of physical reality.
Ambiguous Figures. Potent demonstrations of the
interpretive nature of vision come from ambiguous
figures: single images that can give rise to two or more
distinct perceptions. Several compelling examples are
t
2
A. Vase/Faces
B. Necker Cube
Figure 1.1.5 Ambiguous figures. Figure A can be seen either
as a white vase against a black background or as a pair of black
faces against a white background. Figure B can be seen as a cube
viewed from above or below. Figure C can be seen as a duck (fac¬
ing left) or a rabbit (facing right).
shown in Figure 1.1.5. The vase/faces figure in part A
can be perceived either as a white vase on a black back¬
ground (Al) or as two black faces in silhouette against a
are white background (A2). The Necker cube in Figure
1.1.5B can be perceived as a cube in two different ori¬
entations relative to the viewer: with the observer look¬
ing down and to the right at the cube (Bl) or looking up
and to the left (B2). When the percept “reverses,” the
interpretation of the depth relations among the lines
be change; front edges become back ones, and back edges
become front ones. A somewhat different kind of ambi¬
guity is illustrated in Figure 1.1,5C. This drawing can be
seen either as a duck facing left (C1) or as a rabbit facing
right (C2). The interpretation of lines again shifts from
one percept to the other, but this time the change is
from one body part to another: The duck’s bill becomes
the rabbit’s ears, and a bump on the back of the duck’s
head becomes the rabbit’s nose.
There are two important things to notice about your
perception of these ambiguous figures as you look at
them. First, the interpretations are mutually exclusive. That
9 An Introduction to Vision Science
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 DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
 FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
 Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA

I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
 The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

 This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
 “We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
 Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
 BRAZIER

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT

SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB

CUTTING THE EDGE

 FINISHING THE BOTTOM

LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING

FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

 LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE

TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL

NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
 Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK

DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG

REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

 BEATING THE BARK

WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT

MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN