An exploration of ideas emanating from behavioural, developmental, neurophysiological, neuropsychological and computational approaches to the problem of visual perceptual organization. It is based on papers presented at the 31st Carnegie Symposium on Cognition, held in June 2000.
COMPUTER VISION is a field of research that encompasses many objectives. A primary goal has been to construct visual sensors that can provide general-purpose robots with the same information about their surroundings as we receive from our own visual senses. This book takes an important step towards this goal by describing a working computer vision system named SCERPO. This system can recognize known three-dimensional objects in ordinary black-and-white images taken from unknown viewpoints, even when parts of the object are undetectable or hidden from view. A second major goal of computer vision re search is to provide a computational understanding of human vision. The research presented in this book has many implica tions for our understanding of human vision, particularly in the areas of perceptual organization and knowledge-based recogni tion. An attempt has been made to relate each computational result to the relevant areas in the psychology of vision. Since the material is meant to be accessible to a wide range of inter disciplinary readers, the book is written in plain language and attempts to explain most concepts from the starting position of the non-specialist. vii viii PREFACE One of the most important conclusions ansmg from this research is that visual recognition can commonly be achieved directly from the two-dimensional image without any prelim inary reconstruction of depth information or surface orienta tion from the visual input.
Originally published in 1981, perceptual organization had been synonymous with Gestalt psychology, and Gestalt psychology had fallen into disrepute. In the heyday of Behaviorism, the few cognitive psychologists of the time pursued Gestalt phenomena. But in 1981, Cognitive Psychology was married to Information Processing. (Some would say that it was a marriage of convenience.) After the wedding, Cognitive Psychology had come to look like a theoretically wrinkled Behaviorism; very few of the mainstream topics of Cognitive Psychology made explicit contact with Gestalt phenomena. In the background, Cognition's first love – Gestalt – was pining to regain favor. The cognitive psychologists' desire for a phenomenological and intellectual interaction with Gestalt psychology did not manifest itself in their publications, but it did surface often enough at the Psychonomic Society meeting in 1976 for them to remark upon it in one of their conversations. This book, then, is the product of the editors’ curiosity about the status of ideas at the time, first proposed by Gestalt psychologists. For two days in November 1977, they held an exhilarating symposium that was attended by some 20 people, not all of whom are represented in this volume. At the end of our symposium it was agreed that they would try, in contributions to this volume, to convey the speculative and metatheoretical ground of their research in addition to the solid data and carefully wrought theories that are the figure of their research.
This book is dedicated to the unique interdisciplinary research of imagery processing, recognition and perception. The contents of this book are based on the concepts of mathematical processing, compositional analysis applied in the art and design, and psychological factors of the information perception process. The conduction of compositional analysis carried out in the course of images processing and recognition, creation of the image project solution and modeling of the conceptual space structures are considered together with the mechanism of their perception. Edited and written by a group of international experts, the practical applications for industry are covered, including the influence of internet memes on social networks and face recognition technology subject to interferences. The algorithms of perception and improving of accuracy necessary for satellite imagery recognition and complex reflection from the object are represented with the use of artificial neural networks. Not just a study in how humans recognize and perceive images, this outstanding new volume delves into how these processes are used in technology for continuously evolving industrial applications. Whether for the veteran scientist or engineer, or for the student, this is a must-have for any library.
How does the brain piece together the information required to achieve object recognition, figure-ground segmentation, object completion in cases of partial occlusion and related perceptual phenomena? This book focuses on principles of Gestalt psychology and the key issues which surround them, providing an up-to-date survey of the most interesting and highly debated topics in visual neuroscience, perception and object recognition. The volume is divided into three main parts: Gestalt and perceptual organisation, attention aftereffects and illusions, and color vision and art perception. Themes covered in the book include: - a historical review of Gestalt theory and its relevance in modern-day neuroscience - the relationship between perceptive and receptive fields - a critical analysis of spatiotemporal unity of perception - the role of Gestalt principles in perceptual organization - self-organizing properties of the visual field - the role of attention and perceptual grouping in forming non-retinotopic representations - figural distortions following adaptation to spatial patterns - illusory changes of brightness in spatial patterns - the function of motion illusions as a tool to study Gestalt principles in vision - conflicting theories of color vision and the neural basis of it - the role of color in figure-ground segmentation - chromatic assimilation in visual art and perception - the phenomena of colored shadows. Including contributions from experts in the field, this book will provide an essential overview of current research and theory on visual perception and Gestalt. It will be key reading for researchers and academics in the field of visual perception and neuroscience.
This handbook is an essential, comprehensive resource for students and academics interested in topics in cognitive psychology, including perceptual issues, attention, memory, knowledge representation, language, emotional influences, judgment, problem solving, and the study of individual differences in cognition.
Since the first edition was published in 1951, The Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology has been recognized as the standard reference in the field. The most recent (3rd) edition of the handbook was published in 2004, and it was a success by any measure. But the field of experimental psychology has changed in dramatic ways since then. Throughout the first 3 editions of the handbook, the changes in the field were mainly quantitative in nature. That is, the size and scope of the field grew steadily from 1951 to 2004, a trend that was reflected in the growing size of the handbook itself: the 1-volume first edition (1951) was succeeded by a 2-volume second edition (1988) and then by a 4-volume third edition (2004). Since 2004, however, this still-growing field has also changed qualitatively in the sense that, in virtually every subdomain of experimental psychology, theories of the mind have evolved into theories of the brain. Research methods in experimental psychology have changed accordingly and now include not only venerable EEG recordings (long a staple of research in psycholinguistics) but also MEG, fMRI, TMS, and single-unit recording. The trend towards neuroscience is an absolutely dramatic, worldwide phenomenon that is unlikely to ever be reversed. Thus, the era of purely behavioral experimental psychology is already long gone, even though not everyone has noticed. Experimental psychology and "cognitive neuroscience" (an umbrella term that includes behavioral neuroscience, social neuroscience and developmental neuroscience) are now inextricably intertwined. Nearly every major psychology department in the country has added cognitive neuroscientists to its ranks in recent years, and that trend is still growing. A viable handbook of experimental psychology should reflect the new reality on the ground. There is no handbook in existence today that combines basic experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience, this despite the fact that the two fields are interrelated – and even interdependent – because they are concerned with the same issues (e.g., memory, perception, language, development, etc.). Almost all neuroscience-oriented research takes as its starting point what has been learned using behavioral methods in experimental psychology. In addition, nowadays, psychological theories increasingly take into account what has been learned about the brain (e.g., psychological models increasingly need to be neurologically plausible). These considerations explain why this edition of: The Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology is now called The Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. The title serves as a reminder that the two fields go together and as an announcement that the Stevens' Handbook covers it all. The 4th edition of the Stevens’ Handbook is a 5-volume set structured as follows: I. Learning & Memory: Elizabeth Phelps & Lila Davachi (Volume Editors) Topics include fear learning; time perception; working memory; visual object recognition; memory and future imagining; sleep and memory; emotion and memory; attention and memory; motivation and memory; inhibition in memory; education and memory; aging and memory; autobiographical memory; eyewitness memory; and category learning. II. Sensation, Perception & Attention: John Serences (Volume Editor) Topics include attention; vision; color vision; visual search; depth perception; taste; touch; olfaction; motor control; perceptual learning; audition; music perception; multisensory integration; vestibular, proprioceptive, and haptic contributions to spatial orientation; motion perception; perceptual rhythms; the interface theory of perception; perceptual organization; perception and interactive technology; perception for action. III. Language & Thought: Sharon Thompson-Schill (Volume Editor) Topics include reading; discourse and dialogue; speech production; sentence processing; bilingualism; concepts and categorization; culture and cognition; embodied cognition; creativity; reasoning; speech perception; spatial cognition; word processing; semantic memory; moral reasoning. IV. Developmental & Social Psychology: Simona Ghetti (Volume Editor) Topics include development of visual attention; self-evaluation; moral development; emotion-cognition interactions; person perception; memory; implicit social cognition; motivation group processes; development of scientific thinking; language acquisition; category and conceptual development; development of mathematical reasoning; emotion regulation; emotional development; development of theory of mind; attitudes; executive function. V. Methodology: E. J. Wagenmakers (Volume Editor) Topics include hypothesis testing and statistical inference; model comparison in psychology; mathematical modeling in cognition and cognitive neuroscience; methods and models in categorization; serial versus parallel processing; theories for discriminating signal from noise; Bayesian cognitive modeling; response time modeling; neural networks and neurocomputational modeling; methods in psychophysics analyzing neural time series data; convergent methods of memory research; models and methods for reinforcement learning; cultural consensus theory; network models for clinical psychology; the stop-signal paradigm; fmri; neural recordings; open science.
Perceptual organization comprises a wide range of processes such as perceptual grouping, figure-ground organization, filling-in, completion, perceptual switching, etc. Such processes are most notable in the context of shape perception but they also play a role in texture perception, lightness perception, color perception, motion perception, depth perception, etc. Perceptual organization deals with a variety of perceptual phenomena of central interest, studied from many different perspectives, including psychophysics, experimental psychology, neuropsychology, neuroimaging, neurophysiology, and computational modeling. Given its central importance in phenomenal experience, perceptual organization has also figured prominently in classic Gestalt writings on the topic, touching upon deep philosophical issues regarding mind-brain relationships and consciousness. In addition, it attracts a great deal of interest from people working in applied areas like visual art, design, architecture, music, and so forth. The Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization provides a broad and extensive review of the current literature, written in an accessible form for scholars and students. With chapter written by leading researchers in the field, this is the state-of-the-art reference work on this topic, and will be so for many years to come.
This comprehensive and authoritative text/reference presents a unique, multidisciplinary perspective on Shape Perception in Human and Computer Vision. Rather than focusing purely on the state of the art, the book provides viewpoints from world-class researchers reflecting broadly on the issues that have shaped the field. Drawing upon many years of experience, each contributor discusses the trends followed and the progress made, in addition to identifying the major challenges that still lie ahead. Topics and features: examines each topic from a range of viewpoints, rather than promoting a specific paradigm; discusses topics on contours, shape hierarchies, shape grammars, shape priors, and 3D shape inference; reviews issues relating to surfaces, invariants, parts, multiple views, learning, simplicity, shape constancy and shape illusions; addresses concepts from the historically separate disciplines of computer vision and human vision using the same “language” and methods.