Perception of the Visual Environment

detailed historical description of how the facts presented here were or- inally discovered. The text strives to explain in a manner that can be grasped by undergraduates the major ideas and scienti?c discoveries that have allowed us to understand perception as it occurs in humans. A similarly hard choice was deciding how many citations to include to the primary scienti?c literature. Almost every paragraph in this book could have numerous citations to published studies or references to the names of individuals who developed the ideas being discussed. However, speci?c citations are not included in the text, which only refers to a few individual scientists by name, thereby neglecting a vast army of other researchers who made the discoveries summarized here. In some cases, particularly when describing a very speci?c ?nding or set of studies by contemporary workers, the name of the author in whose lab the study was conducted is mentioned. However, the inclusion of num- ous citations or names of scientists interfered with the primary goal of introducing the major concepts and facts in an uncluttered manner. Also, at times, complex results had to be simpli?ed in a manner that remains true to the spirit of the original research ?ndings, but may differ enough in some speci?c details that a speci?c citation might give offense rather than credit. To compensate, a limited list of suggested readings appears at the end of each chapter.

Table of Contents:
Conceptual and Philosophical Issues: What Does It Mean to Assert That an Observer Perceives?.- Psychophysical Methods: What Scientific Procedures Can Be Used to Ask an Observer What Is Being Perceived?.- The Perceptual Environment: What Is Out There to Be Perceived?.- Sensing the Environment: What Mechanisms Are Used to Sample, Image, and Transduce Physical Stimulation from the Environment?.- Perceptual Processing I.Biological Hardware:What Properties of Neural Tissues Support Perceptual Processing in Humans and Monkeys?.- Perceptual Processing II. Abstractions: How Can Perceptual Processing Be Characterized and Modeled as Flow of Abstract Information?.- Color Vision: How Are Objective Wavelengths of Light Transformed into Secondary Qualities of Percepts Called Colors?.- Form Vision: How Is Information About Shapes of Objects Transferred from the Environment to Our Percepts?.- Perception of Three-Dimensional Space: How Do We Use Information Derived from One or Both Eyes to Perceive the Spatial Layout of Our Surroundings?.- Dynamic How-Perception: How Do We Perceive and React to Change and Motion?.- Perceptual Development: Where Does the Information Come from That Allows Perceptual Systems to Become Wired Together in Such a Manner That They Can Perceive?.- Higher-Order and Subjective Aspects of Perception: How Are Low-Level Stimulus Properties Transformed into High-Level Percept Qualities?.