Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 249
Visual Perception of Real arid
Represented Objects arid Events
JULIAN HOCHBERG
INTRODUCTION
Experimental psychology started with the study of how we perceive
pictures and of the conditions under which one object is an effective sur-
rogate for another (that is, the two objects elicit the same effect). Such
study has served the purposes of other disciplines as well, and remains
inherently interdisciplinary.
Prior to 1850 the problem was primarily pursued by artists and philos-
ophers, and the conceptual tools were essentially those of physics and
geometry. In the classical period, roughly from 1850 to 1950, the primary
theoretical concerns were those of neurophysiologists and psychologists.
Major applications-in visual prosthesis (e.g., optometry and ophthal-
mology), the visual media (e.g., photography, print, and eventually tele-
vision), and the interface between human and machine currently called
human factors motivated much of the research that provided a rich base
of technical data.
The present period of tremendous ferment started around 1950. The
problems of perception continue to engage all the disciplines already men-
tioned; in addition, computer science is now a major presence in the field,
providing tools and motivation in several distinct but closely related ways:
as a source of techniques for research, theory testing, and modeling; as a
source of analogies and metaphors; as an overlapping enterprise, seeking
to devise machines that will "perceive" in the same way that people do;
and in the context of learning how to generate and display computer images
that humans can readily and accurately comprehend.
249
OCR for page 249
250
JULIAN HOCHBERG
THE PRE-1850s: ARTISTS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND PHYSICISTS
Artists have known for centuries that one way to produce a picture is to
make a surrogate object that (ideally) offers the eye the same pattern of
light as that offered by the scene itself. The most famous example of this
is Leonardo's window (Figure 1A): By tracing the outlines of objects on a
plane of glass interposed between his eye and the scene, the artist discovers
the characteristics of a two-dimensional projection of a three-dimensional
scene. Of course, the method could be used to provide pictures of existing
(B)
FIGURE 1 Surrogates and their preparation. A: One of the optical aids that artists
have used for centuries (surer) to help in preparing a surrogate that provides the eye
with much of the same stimulus information as the object or scene being represented.
B: By studying the tracings made of scenes viewed through a glass pane Leonardo
advised that artists could learn the characteristic two-dimensional projections of three-
dimensional layouts and could then construct pictures of imagined scenes.
OCR for page 249
VISUAL PERCEPTION OF REAL AND REPRESENTED OBJECTS AND EVENTS 251
scenes with no need for the artist to learn anything: the scene could be
traced directly on the glass (Figure 1B) or with the growth of technology-
by photographic or video media.
Some traditional features that result from projecting normal three-di-
mensional scenes on two dimensions appear in Figure 2: these include linear
perspective, familiar size, relative size, and interposition. Note that even
a perfect picture produced in this way is inherently ambiguous, in that both
the flat surrogate and the very different three-dimensional layout it repre-
sents offer the same light to the eye. This is the aspect of pictures that
made them, and visual perception, of interest to the philosophers the
epistemological issue of how we can know what is true. Philosophical
concerns aside, the ambiguity is inherent as a matter of simple mathematics,
and provides both the opportunity for pictorial communication and a tool
for psychological and physiological inquiry.
The artist who learns to use signs of depth, as in Figure 2, can produce
surrogates of scenes that do not and perhaps could not exist virtual scenes
of grottos, unicorns, and biblical and extraterrestrial events. Indeed, we
shall see that in Me interest of visual comprehensibility it is necessary to
depart from pure projection, and most pictures are therefore to some extent
surrogates of virtual rather Man actual scenes.
Today computers provide an increasing proportion of Me still and moving
pictures that humans confront. For Hem to do so programmers must learn
how to project ~ree-dimensional layouts in two-dimensional arrays and to
generate the play of light and shade by which different surface textures are
FIGURE 2 The major
pictorial (monocular)
depth cues: the tracing of
the scene in Figure 1B. ~
Linear Perspective: paral- 3 ~ 19px 8 ,
let lines ~8, 7-9, etc., ~ ~ TIC >\
converge in the picture f ' l. / 5
plane. Interposition: the / /
nearer object4 occludes I ~ /
part of the farther object Em\/ / 4
5. Relative Size: the trac- / ~ ~ /C ~
sing of boy 1 Is larger / )\ / \
than that of boy 2. Tex- ~ /~ / 7
ture-Density Gradient:
the evenly spaced bars on
the field 6-7-8-9 project an image whose density increases with distance. Familiar
Size: if man 3 is known to be larger than boy 1, and they are the same size in the
picture plane, then the man must be proportionally farther away in the represented scene.
Tracings on the picture plane
OCR for page 249
252
JULIAN HOCHBERG
perceived (Figure 31. The study of such rules-traditionally called depth
cues (Woodworth, 1938) and lately called "ecological optics" (Gibson,
1979) is fundamentally a branch of physics, but one that must be pursued
with the psychological and neurophysiological limitations and contributions
of the human viewer firmly in mind.
Surrogates are therefore more than means of pictorial communication:
they tell us about the limits of the information that the sense organ can pick
up and about how the brain organizes that information. Perhaps the earliest
major instance of that point was in Newton's (1672) famous experiment in
visual sensation, showing that an appropriate mix of three narrow wave-
lengths of light bands of color taken out of the spectrum, such as red,
green, and blue can serve as a surrogate for any and all colors in the
spectrum, and thus match any scene (Figure 41. This is not a fact about
photic energy the light itself remains unchanged by the mixture. It is
instead a strong clue about our sensory nervous systems, and it provided
the background for the classical theory of perception and the nervous system,
which we consider next.
PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY FROM 1850-1950
Given the facts of color mixture, the most parsimonious model of visual
perception was the Young-Helmholtz theory (Helmholtz, 18661: that color
perception is mediated by three kinds of specialized receptor neurons, the
cones, each responsive to most of the spectrum, but each with a different
sensitivity function. The three types were thought to be most sensitive to
light that looks red, green, and blue, respectively, and their response to
FIGURE 3 Computer-drawn image. A picture programmed directly from blueprints
of a building, using a polygon facet approach with a simple lighting model that simulates
direct sun and diffuse sky illumination. Paul Roberts, Computer Vision Lab, Columbia
University.
OCR for page 249
VISUAL PERCEPTION OF REAL AND REPRESENTED OBJECTS AND EVENTS 253
,~,,
A
650
~ -__
580
530
D I
460
_ _
I E
_650
B 1 650
~ 580
1 53o
460
1
RED C
ORANGE
YELLOW
GREEN
BLUE
V IOLET
' 460
-
-
\
A I
(_)
' ~ I
\
O ~ ~
9, ~ ~ >
_ ~O
G
CC Z ~
~ o Z
o ~
100
50
460 530 6s0
-VV
400 500 600 700
H
FIGURE 4 Color surrogates. To the visual system G. a suitable mixture F of just
Tree wavelengths selected by slits E from the visible spectrum D can, in principle, be
a surrogate for any hue C, that is, any set of wavelengths in the spectrum. According
to the traditional Young-Helrnholtz theory, the physiological explanation involves three
types of retinal cone cells with the Tree sensitivity functions shown in H. From these
we can see, for example, that a mix of equally effective intensities at 650 and 530 is
indistinguishable from 580 and could serve as a surrogate for the latter.
photic energy was thought to underlie the experience of those colors. The
retina was envisioned as a mosaic of independent triads of the three cones
(Figure 5), and the light provided to the eye by any scene was thought to
be analyzed into the point-responses of the three component colors. The
research most directly relevant to this theory was the attempt to map the
sensitivity of each type of cone to the wavelengths of the visible spectrum
and to map the spatial resolution of the retinal mosaic what detail the eye
could be expected to resolve.
Such information as the limits of resolution and the bases and specification
of colors provided the first goals for what has become visual science and
its applications, which now run from the prescription of spectacles to the
design of television characteristics. It was also the foundation of the classical
view of the perceptual process in general, diagrammed in Figure 6: at left,
the object in the world, with its physical properties of distance, size, shape,
reflectance (surface color). These do not affect the sense organs directly,
of course, but only by means of the light they reflect to the sensitive cells.
All things that cause the cells to respond in some specific way elicit the
same sensory experience: the light coming from the object itself, the light
produced by some surrogate of that object, the effects of mechanical or
OCR for page 249
254
JULIAN HOCHBERG
FIGURE 5 The sensory mosaic. ~ >
In the simplest view, the retina of '~
the eye contains a mosaic of light- Ad. X
sensitive cells. The spacing of the ~.F . ~
mosaic determines what detail can ( ~\
be seen: e.g., to distinguish a "C" '
from an "O." at least one cell (x) \>~ ~
must go unstimulated. The visible ~ it, i~ =
portionoftheelectromagneticra- ye ~3 _ TO BRAIN
diation incident at each point in the ~ iit.~3~ ~
retina that is capable of full color ~ ~.
vision is coded into the output of \_
each of three cones according to its '
sensitivity curve (Figure 4H). This is, of course, essentially
the way in which video cameras analyze the light they receive from
D.S.
UL1
Lit
-
SIZE
REFL.
SPACE
ETC.
RETINAL MOSAIC,
P.S. SENSATION PERCEPTION
0
0
0~
Cam
a'
L,A L',RGB
CUES CUES
Z ~
o o
Co O
SIZE
ROYGBIV
WB (REFL.)
SPACE
ETC.
FIGURE 6 The classical theory (1850-1950~. The distal stimulus, D.S. (an object or
layout of objects), with such physical properties as size, reflectance, position in space,
etc., impinges on the sensory surface by way of the proximal stimulus pattern, P.S.,
consisting of regions that vary in their spatial extent (~) and spectral distribution [lu
minance (L), wavelengths (A)~. Sensory responses to each region (sensations) were
thought to vary correspondingly in brightness (L') and hue (the mix of Red, Green,
and Blue) over some extent all. Because of the regularities of the world and its geometry,
the proximal stimulation will generally contain patterns (e.g., the cues in Figure 2) that
are characteristic of and therefore provide information about the distal properties. The
perception of such properties (objects' sizes, surface reflectances, spatial location, etc.)
were thought to derive from the underlying sensations by associative learning and by
computational processes.
OCR for page 249
VISUAL PERCEPTION OF REAL AND REPRESENTED OBJECTS AND EVENTS 255
electrical stimulation of the eye, etc. Insofar as different objects and events
produce the same responses, information about the world is lost in this
encoding process. This is what makes surrogates possible. And the fact
that very different objects, and indeed different patterns of light, have the
same effects on the nervous system provides a tool with which to study
that system's structure and function.
The visual system thus conceived is a mosaic of receptors (the retina)
on which the eye's optical system projects a focused image of the light
provided by the object. The receptors (the three types of cone, supplemented
by rods, which do not differentiate color) analyze each small region of that
image into points of red, green, and blue. This conception of the visual
system has now been embodied in the television camera: Television, like
the Helmholtzian visual system, reduces the countless objects and events
of the world to the different combinations of a set of three colors in a spatial
mosaic. It is important both for the Helmholtzian theory and for television
as a medium that such a simple set will suffice. In both cases, all of the
remaining properties of the objects that we perceive in the world their
sizes, forms, and reflectances (i.e., surface colors), their distances and
movements are lost in the encoding process and must be supplied by the
viewer.
The simplest theory about such nonsensory processes was inherited from
centuries of philosophical analyses of perception: the theory that we have
learned the perceptual properties of objects from our experiences with the
world. It runs as follows:
The sense organs analyze the world into~ndamental sensations.
Those sensations are, in the case of vision, the sets of points that differ
in hue (R. G. B in Figure 6, signifying red, green, and blue sensory
experiences) and brightness (L') over some effective extent, D'. These
packets of sensations normally come in characteristic patterns that are im-
posed by the regularities of the physical world, patterns such as the depth
cues in Figure 2. By learning these regularities and their meanings, we
learn to perceive the physical world and its properties.
The theory seems to be economical and elegant. The principles of learning
appeared to be at hand. For almost two centuries (from Hobbes in 1651 to
James Mill in 1829), the British empiricist philosophers had discussed how
the "laws of association," offered in essence by Aristotle, could serve to
build our perceptions and ideas about the objects and events of the world.
And a plausible neurophysiological explanation of association readily of-
fered itself in terms of increased readiness of nerve cells that had been
repeatedly stimulated simultaneously to fire together.
This outline of how we perceive objects and their pictures fitted nicely
into a general theory of knowledge and of science, spanning from neuro
OCR for page 249
256
JULIAN HOCHBERG
physiology to sociology and political science. With respect to the last, for
example, the view that all our ideas about the world derive from our
experiences with it leads readily (but not ineluctably) to the belief that
human intelligence and character are generally perfectible through educa-
tion, and to the advocacy of egalitarianism and individualism over a wide
range of social and political issues.
Although formulated by Helmholtz only one academic generation after
his teacher, Johannes Mueller (1838), first undertook the scientific analysis
of experience, what I am calling the classical theory of perception thus had
wide and deep connections with the mainstream of Western thought, and
it remained the dominant theory in neurophysiology and psychology until
the l950s.
It was not without opposition, however. Some opposition was based on
a cluster of purely psychological flaws. Although, for example, the theory
tells us which different stimuli will act as mutual surrogates that is, which
different objects will produce the same perceptual experience it does not
tell us what that experience will be like. It does not predict the attributes
of the experience itself, i.e., it tells us that light composed of a mixture of
650 nanometers (red) and 540 nanometers (green) is indistinguishable in
appearance from light of 580 nanometers (nary) (yellow), but it gives us no
basis for predicting how that appearance is similar to and different from
other colors. As we will see, alternative theories, almost as old as the
Helmholtzian one, offer much more in the way of accounting for appear-
ance. Notable among these proposals based on phenomenology (the study
of appearances as such) were the following: Hering (1878) argued that
perceived colors comprise red-green, yellow-blue, and black-white oppo-
nent systems; that connections between cells of the two retinas provide for
an innate sense of depth; and that lateral inhibition between adjacent regions
of the visual system make their appearances mutually dependent. Mach
(1886) proposed (among other things) that such lateral connections provide
networks that are sensitive to contours and not merely to incident energy.
A related problem is illustrated in Figure 7. In most situations in the real
world, the local stimulation that is projected to the eye is not by itself
information about object properties. Even if the two gray target disks on
the cube are of identical lightness or reflectance (R0, the luminance or
photic energy each provides the eye is different ELI, L2) because the illu-
mination falling on each is different (E~, E21. Again, even if the two vertical
rods on the right are of the same physical size (S), the size of the retinal
image each provides all, 02) differs because the rods lie at different distances
ODE, D21. Nevertheless, we tend to perceive such object properties correctly,
despite changing retinal stimulation. The classical theory held that this
object constancy, as it is now known, is achieved when the viewer takes
OCR for page 249
VISUAL PERCEPTION OF REAL AND REPRESENTED OBJECTS AND EVENTS 257
Ems
~ E2
Rt = L1/E1 = L2/E2 S= DxTan ~
FIGURE 7 Object constancy. Although both target disks on Me cube have the same
reflectance (Rt), the luminances ELI, L2) differ to the eye because the illuminations (E~,
E2) differ. Similarly, objects of the same size (S) provide images of different extent
aft, 02) depending on Den distances ODE, Do. We tend to see objects' relatively
permanent qualities, such as their reflectance and size, as constant even though the
proximal stimulation they provide is in flux. In the classical theory we do this by
learning to process visual information according to the formulae R(reflectance) =
L(lum~nance)/E(illum~nation), and S(size) = D(distance) x tangent of D(visual extent).
the conditions of seeing into account: in effect, by using the depth cues to
perceive depths Do and D2, and then using the latter to infer the object sizes
from the retinal sizes All, 02~; similarly, to use cues to perceive the illu-
minations En and E2, and, using the latter, to infer the reflectances of the
parts of the scene from their luminances.
This explanation is now commonly called "unconscious inference." Its
operation assumes that the viewer has learned the constraints in the physical
world (e.g., that L= R x E, that S =kDtanD, etch. These constraints, once
learned, provide a mental structure that mirrors the physical relationship
between the attributes of the object and those of sensory stimulation, per-
mitting the viewer to infer or compute the former from the latter. A general
form of this explanation is that we perceive just that state of affairs in the
world that would, under normal conditions, be most likely to produce the
pattern of sensory responses we receive.
The learning processes that might underlie such computations have never
been formally and explicitly worked out. What we would now call "lookup
tables" (for example, with grouped entries for S. 0, and D) would be
compatible with theories about associative learning. Helmholtz and others
often wrote, however, as though we learn to apply the rules that mirror
those of the physical world; they did not say explicitly, however, how such
abstract principles, as distinguished from lookup tables listing the elements
of sense data, are learned.
OCR for page 249
258
JULIAN HOCHBERG
The Helmholtzian idea that our perceptions of objects rest on compu-
tational or inferential process was, like the classical theory's failure to
predict appearances, roundly criticized over the years as being uneconom-
ical, mentalistic, and unparsimonious. Gestalt theory, which had a signif-
icant impact in psychology and art theory between the two world wars, was
particularly vocal in this regard. But the criticisms of the classical theory
did not amount to much until the end of World War II. Then the needs of
new technology (flight training, radar and sonar displays, etc.), the devel-
opment of new instrumentation (notably, direct amplifiers that made the
measurement of very small bioelectrical tissue responses common and re-
liable), and the effects of grants that made the research career a viable
occupation, all combined to turn the tables. As we will see, Helmholtz was
right about the three cones and in some sense about the existence of mental
structure and computation. But most of the rest of what lay between those
points was wrong, and most of the alternative proposals that had been made
by the critics of that dominant approach, especially those of Hering and
Mach, were quite remarkably vindicated within a period of a very few
years, after having been largely ignored for many decades.
THE 1950s AND AFTER: "DIRECT" SENSITIVITY
TO OBJECT ATTRIBUTES
The two main arguments on which the classical theory rested were, first,
that it was the simplest answer to the problem of analyzing the world of
sensory stimulation, and second, that it was in accord with neurophysio-
logical observation. In the l950s both of these supports were withdrawn.
Technically, as is widely recognized, the most important single advance
in instrumentation was the microelectrode, which made it possible to record
the activity of individual nerve cells in the visual system and brain of an
essentially intact animal that is exposed to various sensory displays. It
quickly became evident that most of the cells observed in this way respond
not to individual points of local stimulus energy but to extended spatial and
temporal patterns-to adjacent differences in intensity, specific features,
and movements in one rather than another direction (Figure 81. They appear
to do so by means of networks of lateral connections, which were very
much what Hering and Mach had argued.
In the 1950s lIurvich and Jameson (1957) offered sensitivity curves for
the red-green and yellow-blue opponent process cells that Hering had pro-
posed, using procedures based on colors' appearances and not just on their
discriminabilities (Figure 9A).
They "titrated" the response that each of these hypothetical red-green
and blue-yellow opponent pairs makes to wavelengths throughout the spec
OCR for page 249
VISU~ PERCEPTION OF REM AD REPRESENTED OBJECTS AD EVENTS 259
'it, -
MICROELECTRODE '; 3
C 0¢ STI MU LUS
+ 3
+ 2 -| ~ _ RESPONSE
'/~` ~ STIMULUS
+3
+2h
+O
4
5
- RESPONSE
FIGURE 8 Pattern-sensitive neural network. Microelectrode recordings from individ-
ual cells in the visual system (Hartline, 1949; Hubel and Wiesel, 1962) reveal far more
complex organization than the simple individual punctate analysis of Figures 5 and 6.
For example, receptors in the retina 1 send both excitatory ~ +) and inhibitory (- ~
connections to more proximal cells 2; those connections are arranged in networks so
that cells at level 2 are stimulated by light falling in a center region and inhibited by
light falling in its surround. Other cells 3 still deeper in the system are so connected
as to be more highly stimulated by a bar or edge falling on the line of 2 than by bars
of other orientation 4. Cells farther in the nervous system are sensitive to a bar of
specific orientation moving in a specific direction 5.
trum by determining how much of each pure hue was needed to cancel all
traces of its opponent. That is, how much pure red was needed to cancel
the greenishness at each point between approximately 480 and 580 nm,
thus indicating the strength of the response labeled G; how much pure green
would cancel the reddishness of wavelengths above and below this region,
thus indicating the strength of the response labeled R; etc. Wavelengths
that appear as blue, green, yellow, orange, and red are shown at 1-5,
respectively, and what they look like can be read off the graph.
In explanation of these functions, Hurvich and Jameson (1974) proposed
the following networks (see Figure 9B): Given three cones with the sen-
sitivity functions they are now known to have (only approximately those
of Figure 4H) and the network of excitatory connections (solid lines) and
inhibitory connections (dotted lines) that is shown, each of the rightmost
cells would serve as one or another of the yoked opponents by firing above
or below their baseline activity.
Informed by the opponent-process theory, microelectrode research iden-
tified cells in the visual system of the goldfish (Svaetichin, 1956) and in
the rhesus macaque (DeValois and Jacobs, 1968) that responded to wave-
length in just these ways.
Moreover, cells have been found that respond to lines and edges, at
particular orientations, moving and stationary (Hubel and Wiesel, 1962),
OCR for page 249
288
JULIAN HOCHBERG
find ample evolutionary demands, imply that something that corresponds
to motion through space occurs in the mind's eye of the viewer. The
filmmaker or graphics programmer who cuts away from one event to an-
other, and then returns to the first one, must make some assumptions about
how well the viewer keeps track of any motion that is going on in the first
event. The following research shows that discussing such mental motion
is more than just a poetic metaphor.
Shepard and his colleagues had shown in a wide range of experiments
that the time subjects need to judge whether two objects are the same or
different (Figure 21A) is proportional to the angle between them, as though
one object were being mentally rotated at some constant rate to bring it to
the same orientation as the other in making the comparison (Shepard and
Cooper, 1982; Shepard and Metzler, 1971~. Using that paradigm, Cooper
(1976) first determined each subject's characteristic "mental rotation" rate,
co, and then, after having had subjects memorize the figures, displayed the
comparison figure at some variable angle (~) and delayed after a starting
signal by a variable interval (t). She found that if the product of It) x (t) = Gil,
judgment times no longer increased with angle Ail: they were now inde-
pendent of the angle between the two objects being compared (Figure 21B).
The results are what one would expect if the object had in fact been rotated
at angular velocity co x (t) between presentations i and ii, and if both
objects had come to the same orientation by the time the comparison was
called for.
Given these findings, "mental rotation" seems more than a metaphor
that summarizes the fact that judgment time is a function of angle (~) in
Figure 21A. It implies a usable and consistent relationship between time
and distance in a mental structure that cannot be attributed to physical
stimulus information.
A third and quite different paradigm, which appears in a recent technical
report by Cooper (1984) on work in progress, may tell us something more
general about the form in which perceived objects are manipulated and
stored and may also eventually provide a tool with which to compare how
well different methods of representation accord with the ways in which
objects are perceived and remembered. Subjects had been given two or-
thographic projections of an object (a and b in Figure 22) and were to judge
whether a third orthographic projection (c) was of the same or of a different
object. No isometric projections (e.g., c) of any objects were shown to the
subjects at this time. Subsequently the subjects were shown a set of isometric
projections (e.g., c, f), some of which represented the objects used in the
previous tasks and some of which did not. Subjects tended to report that
they had seen the former before, even though no isometric pictures at all
had been shown. Although this research is still in progress, and various
OCR for page 249
VISUAL PERCEPTION OF REAL AND REPRESENTED OBJECTS AND EVENTS 289
.
i
'1
is;
I.
_ ..
~ 11
1
B
.
E11- 1
...1,
111 ~
... .
Ill,lV,,
~ . . .
1,11
i'
i'
a'
ANG LE
A
.
~1
-
~'
it,
,,'
1'
A' t=0
cot= 0
FIGURE 21 Mental rotation. A: Given two objects at different orientations, the time
that it takes to judge whether they are the same or different is a function of the angle
between their orientations, whether in the picture plane i, ii or in depth iii, iv. It is as
though the subject must rotate one object into the orientation of the other before the
two can be compared (Shepard and Metzler, 1971~. B: If the two shapes to be compared
i, ii are presented simultaneously (i.e., separated in time by an interval t = 0.0) their
reaction time R.T. increases with angle, ¢, between their orientations, as above. But
if the comparison figure is presented after an interval t = ¢/m, where ~ is the subject's
characteristic rotation rate (obtained from the slope of the function at t = 0.0), then
the R.T. does not increase with increasing angle ~ (Cooper, 1976~. This is just what
one would mean by saying that the subjects had rotated the object before making the
comparison.
OCR for page 249
290
JULIAN HOCHBERG
a
EE] b
d ~
f
~ ;
\ \
\
_ ,-~ ,
a
Cal
~3
e
FIGURE 22 The structure of perceived objects orthographic and isometric projec-
tions. Two different pictorial systems are shown here: Pictures a and b and pictures d
and e are orthographic projections of objects whose respective isometric projections are
c and I. Isometric projections are easier to grasp, at least for these objects. Cooper
(1984) presents preliminary evidence that even when subjects have been presented only
with orthographic projections of objects, they tend to report later that they have seen
isometric projections of those objects.
controls are needed, the preliminary results will, I feel certain, survive the
necessary replication and controls: Orthographic and isometric projections
can both specify the form of a three-dimensional object, but the isometric
projections are in some sense closer to the way in which we extract and
store the information-closer to the mental structure involved in perceiving
and comparing the objects. Although I know of no research to the point,
it hardly needs an experiment to discover that isometric pictures are more
rapidly and accurately comprehended than orthographic ones. What ex-
periments can do is give us a better understanding of why that is so, and
of the sense in which the isometric picture is more like the structure that
underlies our perception of the object.
These three research procedures that I have described in connection with
Figures 20 through 22 are interesting more as examples of a field of ex
OCR for page 249
VISUAL PERCEPTION OF REAL AND REPRESENTED OBJECTS AND EVENTS 291
penmental and quantitative inquiry than as demonstrations that mental pro-
cesses can be studied and are in that sense real; the latter is not a new
conception. It has repeatedly come into and gone out of scientific fashion,
and merely showing that mental structure "exists," in some sense, will
not add much to its history. Fortunately, this time there are vested interests
in obtaining and systematizing the knowledge, and technical facilities for
doing so, that should keep research and theory centered on these problems
of object perception and representation for some time to come.
REFERENCES
Ames, A.
1951 Visual perception and the rotating trapezoidal window. Psychological Monographs,
No. 324.
Attneave, F.
1954 Some informational aspects of visual perception. Psychological Review 61:183-193.
1959 Applications of Information Theory to Psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston.
Barlow, H., Blakemore, C., and Pettigrew, J.
1967 The neural mechanism of binocular depth discrimination. Journal of Physiology 193:327-
342.
Bekesy, G., van
1960 Neural inhibitory units of eye and skin. Quantitative description of contrast phenomena.
Journal of the Optical Society of America 50:1060-1070.
Berry, R.N.
1948 Quantitative relations among vernier, real depth, and stereoscopic acuities. Journal
of Experimental Psychology 38:708-721.
Blakemore, C., and Campbell, F.W.
1969 On the existence of neurons in the human visual system selectively sensitive to the
orientation and size of retinal images. Journal of Physiology 203:237-260.
Braddick, O.J.
1980 Low-level and high-level processes in apparent motion. In H.C. Longuet-Higgins and
N.S. Sutherland, eds., The Psychology of Vision. London: The Royal Society.
Braddick, O.J., Campbell, F.W., and Atkinson, J.
1978 Channels in vision: basic aspects. In R. Held, H.W. Leibowitz, and H.L. Teuber,
eds., Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Vol. 8. Heidelberg: Springer.
Braunstein, M.L.
1976
1983
Depth Perception Through Motion. New York: Academic Press.
Contrasts between human and machine vision: should technology recapitulate phy-
logeny? In J. Beck, B. Hope, and A. Rosenfeld, eds., Human and Machine Vision.
New York: Academic Press.
BNnswik, E.
1956 Perception arid the Representative Design of Psychological Experiments, 2nd ed.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Buffart, H., Leeuwenberg, E.L.J., and Restle, F.
1981 Coding theory of visual pattern completion. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Human Perception and Performance 7:241-274.
OCR for page 249
292
JULIAN HOCHBERG
Butler, D.L.
1982 Predicting the perception of three-dimensional objects from the geometrical information
in drawings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
8:674-692.
Campbell, A.G., Hartwell, R., and Hood, D.
1978 Lightness constancy at the level of the frog's optic nerve fiber. Proceedings of the
Eastern Psychological Association 49:47 (Abstract).
Campbell, F.W., and Robson, J.G.
1964 Application of Fourier analysis to the modulation response of the eye. Journal of the
Optical Society of America 54:518A (Abstract).
Cavanaugh, P.
1984 Image transforms in the visual system. In P.C. Dodwell and T. Caelli, eds., Figural
Synthesis. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Cooper, L.A.
1976 Demonstration of a mental analog of an external rotation. Perception and Psycho-
physics 19:296-302.
1984 Strategic Factors in Complex Spatial Problem Solving. Invited paper presented at the
annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, Illinois.
Cutting, J.E.
1983 Four assumptions about invariance in perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Human Perception and Performance 9:310-317.
Cutting, J.E., and Millard, R.T.
1984 Three gradients and the perception of flat and curved surfaces. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General 113:198-216.
Dallenbach, K.M.
1951 A puzzle picture with a new principle of concealment. American Journal of Psychology
54:431-433.
Descartes, R.
1650/ Les passions de l'ame. In E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross, trans., The Philosophi
1931 cat Works of Descartes. Cambridge, England: University Press.
DeValois, R., and Jacobs, G.
1968 Primate color vision. Science 162:533 - 540.
DeValois, R.L., Albrecht, D.G., and Thorell, L.G.
1976 Spatial tuning of LGN and cortical cells in monkey visual systems. Pp. 60-63 in H.
Spekreijse and H. van der Tweel, eds., Spatial Contrast. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Donchin, E., Ritter, W., and McCallum, W.C.
1978 Cognitive psychophysiology: the endogenous components of the ERP. Pp. 349-412
in E. Calloway, P. Tueting and S.H. Keslow, eds., Event-Related Potentials in Man.
New York: Academic Press.
Foster, D.H.
1984 Local and global computational factors in visual pattern recognition. In P.C. Dodwell
and T. Caelli, eds., Figural Synthesis. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Galton, F.
1883 Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. London: Macmillan.
Garner, W.R., Hake, H.W., and Eriksen, C.W.
1956 Operationism and the concept of perception. Psychological Review 63:149-159.
Gibson, J.J.
1950 The Perception of the Visual World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
1951 What is a form? Psychological Review 58:403-412.
1966 The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
1979 The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
OCR for page 249
VISUAL PERCEPTION OF REAL AND REPRESENTED OBJECTS AND EVENTS 293
Gillam, B.
1972 Perceived common rotary motion of ambiguous stimuli as a criterion for perceptual
grouping. Perception and Psychophysics 11 :99-101.
Ginsburg, A.
1971 Psychological Correlates of a Model of the Human Visual System. Master's thesis
Air Force Institute of Technology, Dayton, Ohio.
Gogel, W.C.
1984 The role of perceptual interrelations in figural synthesis. In P.C. Dodwell and T.
Caelli, eds., Figural Synthesis. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Graham, C.H.
1963 On some aspects of real and apparent visual movement. Journal of the Optical Society
of America 53:1019- 1025.
Graham, N.
1981 Psychophysics of spatial-frequency channels. In M. Kubovy and J. Pomerantz, eds.,
Perceptual Organization. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Graham, N., and Nachmias, J.
1971 Detection of grating patterns containing two spatial frequencies: a comparison of single
channel and multiple-channel models. Vision Research 11:251-259.
Green, B.
1961 Figure coherence in the kinetic depth effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology
62:272-282.
Gregory, ILL.
1970 The Intelligent Eye. London: Weidenfeld.
Gross, C.G., and Mishkin, M.
1977 The neural basis of stimulus equivalence across retinal translation. Pp. 109-122 in S.
Harnad et al., eds., Lateralization in the Nervous System New York: Academic Press.
Haber, R.N.
1983 Stimulus information and processing mechanisms in visual space perception. In J.
Beck, B. Hope, and A. Rosenfeld, eds., Human and Machine Vision. New York:
Academic Press.
Haber, R.N., and Wilkinson, L.
1982 The perceptual components of computer graphic displays. Computer Graphics and
Applications 2(3):23-25.
Harris, C.S., ed.
1980 Visual Coding and Adaptability. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Hartline, H.K.
1949 Inhibition of activity of visual receptors by illuminating nearby retinal elements in the
Limulus eye. Federation Proceedings 8:69.
Hebb, D.O.
1949 The Organization of Behavior. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Helmholtz, H.L.F., von
1866/ Treatise on Physiological Optics. Vols. ii and iii (translated from the 3rd German edi
1911 tion, 1909-1911). J.P.C. Southall, ed. and trans. Rochester, N.Y.: Optical Society
of America.
Hering, E.
1878/ Outlines of a Theory of the Light Sense (originally published in 1878). L. Hurvich and
1964 D. Jameson, trans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hobbes, T.
1651/ Human Nature (originally published in 1651). In W. Dennis, ea., Readings in the
1948 History of Psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
OCR for page 249
294
Hochberg, J.
1956
1962
JUl lady HOCHBERG
Perception: toward the recovery of a definition. Psychological Review 63:400-405.
The psychophysics of pictoral perception. Audio-Visual Communication Review 10:22
54.
1968 In the mind's eye. In R.N. Haber, ea., Contemporary Theory and Research in Visual
Perception. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
1978a Motion Pictures of Mental Structures. Presidential address to the Eastern Psychological
Association. Washington, D.C., April.
1978b Perception. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
1981
1982
1984a
1984b
Levels of perceptual organization. In M. Kubovy and J. Pomerantz, eds., Perceptual
Organization. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
How big is a stimulus? In J. Beck, ea., Organization and Representation in Perception.
Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Form perception: experience and explanations. In P.C. Dodwell and T. Caelli, eds.,
Figural Synthesis. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Visual Worlds in Collision: Invariances and Premises, Theories versus Facts. Presi-
dential address, Division of Experimental Psychology, annual meeting of the American
Psychological Association, Toronto.
Hochberg, J., and Brooks, V.
1960 The psychophysics of form: reversible-perspective drawings of spatial objects. Amer-
ican Journal of Psychology 73:337-354.
Hochberg, J., and McAlister, E.
1953 A quantitative approach to figural "goodness." Journal of Experimental Psychology
46:361-364.
Hochberg, J., and Spiron, J.
1985 The Ames window: unveridical "direct perception" and not perceptual inference?
Proceedings and Abstracts of the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological As-
sociation 56:38.
Hochberg, J., Amira, L., and Peterson, M.
1984 Extensions of the Schwartz/Sperling phenomenon: invariance under transformation
fails in the perception of objects' moving pictures. Proceedings and Abstracts of the
Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association 55:17 (Abstract).
van Hornbostel, E.M.
..
1922 Uber optische inverson. Psych~logische Forschung, 1:130-156.
Hubel, D.H., and Wiesel, T.N.
1962 Receptive fields, binocular interaction, and functional architecture in the cat's visual
cortex. Journal of Physiology 160:106-154.
1968 Receptive fields and functional architecture of the monkey cortex. Journal of Physi-
ology 195:215-243.
Hurvich, L., and Jameson, D.
1957 An opponent-process theory of color vision. Psychological Review 64:384-404.
1974 Opponent processes as a model of neural organization. American Psychologist 29:88-
102.
Johansson, G.
1977 Spatial constancy and motion in visual perception. In W. Epstein, ea., Stability and
Constancy in Visual Perception. New York: Wiley and Sons.
1980 About Perspective Transformations and the Theory of Visual Space Perception. Upps
ala Psychological Reports, No. 278. Department of Psychology, University of Uppsala,
Sweden.
OCR for page 249
VISUAL PERCEPTION OF REAL AND REPRESENTED OBJECTS AND EVENTS 295
Kabrisky, M., Tallman, T., Day, C.H., and Radoy, C.M.
1970 A theory of pattern perception based on human physiology. In A.T. Welford and L.
Houssiadas, eds., Contemporary Problems in Perception. London: NATO Advanced
Study Institute, Taylor and Francis.
Kaufman, L.
1974 Sight and Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kaufman, L., and Williamson, S.J.
1982 Magnetic location of cortical activity. Annals of the New York Academy of Science
388:197-213.
Kelly, D.H.
1961 Visual responses to time-dependent stimuli. I. Journal of the Optical Society ofAmerica
51:422-429.
Kepler, J.
1611 Dioptrice. In W. van Dyk and M. Caspar, eds., Gesammelte Werke 4:1937-1963.
Augsburg, Germany: Frank.
Koffl`a, K.
1935 Principles of Gestalt Psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
Kohler, W.
1929
Kolers, P.
1972 Aspects of Motion Perception. New York: Pergamon.
Kopfermann, H.
1935 Psychologische Untersuchungen uber die Wirkung zweidimensionaler Darstellungen
korperlicher Gebilde. Psychologische Forschung 13:293-364.
Gestalt Psychology. New York: Liveright.
Korte, A.
1915 Kinematoskopische Untersuchungen. Zeitschrift fur Psychologie 72:194-296.
Kosslyn, S.M.
1980 Image and Mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Leeuwenberg, E.L.J.
1971 A perceptual coding language for visual and auditory patterns. American Journal of
Psychology 84:307-349.
Mach, E.
1886/
1959
Marr, D.
1982
Marr, D., and Poggio, T.
1979 A computational theory of human stereo vision. Proceedings of the Royal Society of
London, b204, 302-328.
McConkie, G.W., and Rayner, K.
1975 The span of effective stimulus during a fixation in reading. Perception and Psycho-
physics 17:578-586.
Metzger, W.
1934 Tiefenerscheinungen in optischen Bewegungsfeldern. Psychologische Forschung 20:195-
260.
The Analysis of Sensations and the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical (trans
lated by S. Waterlow from the 5th German edition, 1886). New York: Dover.
Vision. San Francisco: Freeman.
Mill, J.
1965 Analysis of the phenomena of the human mind. In R.J. Herrnstein and E.G. Boring,
eds., A Source Book in the History of Psychology. Cambndge, Mass.: Harvard Uni
versity Press.
OCR for page 249
296
JULIAN HOCHBERG
Miller, G.A., Galanter, E., and Pribram, K.
1960 Plans and the Structure of Behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Minsky, M.
1975 A framework for representing knowledge. In P.H. Winston, ea., The Psychology of
Computer Vision. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Minsky, M., and Papert, S.
1969 Perceptrons. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Movshon, J.A., Thompson, I.D., and Tollhurst, D.J.
1978 Spatial and temporal contrast sensitivity of neurones in areas 17 and 18 of the cat's
visual cortex. Journal of Physiology 283:101-120.
Mueller, J.
1838/ Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen, bks. V and VI. Coblenz, 1838 and 1840.
1965 Translated in 1848 by W. Baly and excerpted in R.J. Herrnstein and E.G. Boring,
eds., A Source Book in the History of Psychology. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
Newton, I.
1672/ A new theory of light and colors. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Re
I948 printed in W. Dennis, ea., Readings in the History of Psychology. New York: Ap
pleton-Century-Crofts .
Oately, K.
1978 Perceptions and Representations. New York: Free Press.
Pantle, A., and Sekuler, R.
1968 Size-deteeting mechanism in human vision. Science 162:1146-1148.
Penrose, L., and Penrose, R.
1958 Impossible objects: a special type of visual illusion. British Journal of Psychology
49:31-33.
Perrett, D.I., Rolls, E.T., and Caan, W.
1982 Visual neurones responsive to faces in the monkey inferotemporal cortex. Experimental
Brain Research 47:329-342.
Peterson, M.A., and Hoehberg, J.
1983 Opposed-set measurement procedure: a quantitative analysis of the role of local eues
and intention in form perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Per-
ception and Performance 9:183-193.
Rashevsky, N.
1948 Mathematical Biophysics. Chieago: University of Chieago Press.
Ratliff, F.
1965 Mach Ba~uls: Quantitative Studies on Neural Networks in the Retina. San Franeiseo:
Holden-Day.
Reite, M., and Zimmerman, J.
1978 Magnetie phenomena of the central nervous system. Annual Review of Biophysics and
Bioengineering 7:167-188.
Restle, F.
1979 Coding theory of the perception of motion configurations. Psychological Review 86: 1
24.
Roberts, L.G.
1965 Maehine perception of three-dimensional solids. In J.T. Tippett et al., eds., Optical
and Electro-Optical Information Processing. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Roek, I.
1977 In defense of unconscious inference. In W. Epstein, ea., Stability and Constancy in
Visual Perception. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
1983 The Logic of Perception. Cambridge: MIT Press.
OCR for page 249
VISUAL PERCEPTION OF REAL AND REPRESENTED OBJECTS AND EVENTS 297
Rosenblatt, F.
1962 Principles of Neurodynamics. New York: Spartan Books.
Schade, O.H.
1956 Optical and photoelectric analog of the eye. Journal of the Optical Society of America
46:721-739.
Schuck, J., and Leahy, W.R.
1966 A comparison of verbal and non-verbal reports of fragmenting visual images. Per-
ception and Psychophysics 1:191-192.
Schwartz, B.J., and Sperling, G.
1983 Luminance controls the perceived 3-D structure of dynamic 2-D displays. Bulletin of
the Psychonomic Society 21(6):456-458.
Selfridge, O.G.
1959 Pandemonium: a paradigm for learning. In The Mechanization of Thought Processes.
London: H.M. Stationery Office.
Shepard, R.N.
1981 Psychophysical complementarily. In M. Kubovy and J.R. Pomerantz, eds., Perceptual
Organization. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Shepard, R.N., and Cooper, L.
1982 Mental Images and Their Transformations. Cambridge: MIT-Bradford Books.
Shepard, R.N., and Metzler, J.
1971 Mental rotation of three-dimensional objects. Science 171:701-703.
Sperling, G.
1970 Binocular vision: a physical and a neural theory. American Journal of Psychology
83:461-534.
Stevens, K.A.
1983 The visual interpretation of surface contours. Artificial Intelligence 17:47-73.
Sutton, S., Braden, M., Zubin, J., and John, E.R.
1965 Evoked potential correlates of stimulus uncertainty. Science 150:1187-1188.
Svaetichin, G.
1956 Spectral response curves from single cones. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica 39(Suppl.
134):17-46.
Todd, J.
1982 Visual information about rigid and nonrigid motion: a geometric analysis. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 8:238-252.
Todd, J.T., and Mingola, E.
1983 Perception of surface curvature and direction of illumination from patterns of shading.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 9:583-595.
Tolman, E.C.
1938 Schematic "sowbug" and discrimination learning. Psychological Bulletin 35:524.
Ullman, S.
1979 The Interpretation of Visual Motion. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Wallach, H.
1948 Brightness constancy and the nature of achromatic colors. Journal of Experimental
Psychology 38:310-324.
Wallach, H., and O'Connell, D.N.
1953 The kinetic depth effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology 38:310-324.
Watson, J.B.
1913 Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review 20:158-177.
Wheatstone, C.
1839 On some remarkable and hitherto unobserved phenomena of binocular vision. Part 2.
Philosophical Magazine 4:504-523.
OCR for page 249
Ago
~e, BE ~ ~s=, G.
19e Icky of ~=s~g ~ get of emend go tic apt as
pl~s. WHIZ ~Z f~- e loll.
Watt, A.
1911 On ~ ~c1 ~ son avert. Bh~k FIZZ ~^- ~S~-
P~, 1.
act, R.S.
1938 -~_Z ant. New Yak: Hok, ~ ~ West.
@