Visual Perception

Outline:
• Some Basic Concepts of Perception
• How Does Our Visual System Work?
• Pathways to Perceive the What and the Where
• Approaches to Perception: Bottom-Up Theories and
Top-Down Theories
• Perception of Objects and Forms: Viewer-centered vs
Object-centered Perception
• Depth Perception
• We do not perceive the world exactly as
our eyes see it. Instead, our brain actively
tries to make sense of the many stimuli
that enter our eyes and fall on our retina.
• The brain processes the visual stimuli,
giving the stimuli meaning and interpreting
them.
Perceptual continuum
 Optical Illusion
• So sometimes we perceive what is not there.
Other times, we do not perceive what is there.
And at still other times, we perceive what cannot
be there.
• The existence of perceptual illusions suggests
that what we sense in our sensory organs is not
necessarily what we perceive in our minds.
• The way we represent objects will depend in part
on our viewpoint in perceiving the objects.
Vision
Structures of the Human Eye
• Cornea
– Clear outer membrane that bends light to
focus it in the eye.
• Pupil
– The hole in the iris through which light passes.
• Lens
– The structure that focuses light on the retina.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - ©2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
The Retina

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - ©2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

 Vision
Visual Pathways

Optic Nerve
• Pathway that
carries visual
information
from the
eyeball to the
brain.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - ©2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

 Visual pathways in the brain:

• One ascends toward parietal lobe (along

dorsal pathway) – where/how pathway
• One descends to the temporal lobe (along
ventral pathway) – what pathway
• What/how hypothesis: what they are and
how they function; what an object is/how
we can situate ourselves so as to grasp
the object
 Bottom-up Theories
• Also known as data-driven processing,
because perception begins with the
stimulus itself. Processing is carried out in
one direction from the retina to the visual
cortex, with each successive stage in the
visual pathway carrying out ever more
complex analysis of the input.
 Top-down Processing Theories

• refers to the use of contextual

information in pattern recognition
• For example, understanding difficult
handwriting is easier when reading
complete sentences than when reading
single and isolated words. This is because
the meaning of the surrounding words
provide a context to aid understanding.
 Bottom-up Theories
1. Gibson’s Theory of Direct perception
2. Template theories
3. Feature-matching theories
4. Recognition-by-Components (RBC)
 Bottom-up Theories
Gibson’s Theory of Direct perception
•the information in our sensory receptors, including
the sensory context, is all we need to perceive
anything.
•As the environment supplies us with all the
information we need for perception, this view is
sometimes also called ecological perception. In
other words, we do not need higher cognitive
processes or anything else to mediate between our
sensory experiences and our perceptions.
Bottom-up Theories
Template Theory
 Bottom-up Theories
Feature Matching Theory
•we decompose visual patterns into a set of critical
features, which we then try to match against
features stored in memory
 Perceptual Organization
Identifying Objects
• Geons (geometric
icons) are simple 3D
component shapes.
• A limited number are
stored in memory.
• Geons are combined to
identify essential
contours of objects.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - ©2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

 Top-down Theories
• Perception is driven by high-level cognitive
processes, existing knowledge, and the
prior expectations that influence
perception (Constructive Approach)
• Occurs quickly and involves making
inferences, guessing from experience, and
basing one perception on another
 Two Different Pattern
Recognition Systems
• Feature Analysis System – the first system
specializes in recognition of parts of objects and
in assembling those parts into distinctive wholes
• Configurational System – specializes in
recognizing larger configurations. It is not well
equipped to analyze parts of objects or the
construction of the objects. But it is especially
well equipped to recognize configurations.
• Face recognition occurs, at least in part, in
the fusiform gyrus of the temporal lobe.
This brain area responds intensely when
we look at faces but not when we look at
other objects.
GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY
 Perceptual Organization
Reversible Figures
– Drawings that one can
perceive in different ways
by reversing figure and
ground.
• Gestalt Psychology
– School of thought rooted
in the idea that the whole
is different from the sum
of its parts.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - ©2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

 Perception is not just about
detecting color and shape. It is
about organizing visual
information.
 The World of Illusions
The Müller-Lyer Illusion

– Illusion in which
the perceived
length of a line
is altered by the
position of other
lines that
enclose it

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - ©2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Muller-Lyer Illusion
• Agnosia – Inability to interpret sensations and to
recognize things, typically as a result of damage
to the border of the temporal and occipital lobes

• Example: For example, one agnosic patient, on seeing a pair of

eyeglasses, noted first that there was a circle, then that there was
another circle, then that there was a crossbar, and finally guessed
that he was looking at a bicycle. A bicycle does, indeed, comprise
two circles and a crossbar.
• Simultagnosia – an individual is unable to pay
attention to more than one object at a time. A
person with simultagnosia would not see each of
the objects depicted in Figure 3.28. Rather, the
person might report seeing the hammer but not
the other objects.
• Optic ataxia – an impairment in the ability to
use the visual system to guide movement;
Ataxia results from a processing failure in the
posterior parietal cortex, where sensorimotor
information is processed.
• Example: People with this deficit have trouble reaching for things.
All of us have had the experience of coming home at night and
trying to find the keyhole in the front door. It’s too dark to see, and
we have to grope with our key for the keyhole, often taking quite a
while to find it. Someone with optic ataxia has this problem even
with a fully lit visual field. The “how” pathway is impaired.