Perception

Perception

The process of interpreting sensory information to understand the environment.

Cerebral Cortex

The part of the brain that is involved in perception, among other functions, with about 20% dedicated to processing vision.

Bottom-up Processing

A type of processing that starts with sensory input and builds up to the final perception; data-driven.

Top-down Processing

Processing that is influenced by knowledge, expectations, and prior experience; concept-driven.

Primal Sketch

The local features stage in Marr's computational model of visual processing.

Feature Integration Theory

Treisman's theory that describes how objects are perceived in two stages: preattentive and integration.

Recognition-by-components

Biederman's theory on recognizing 3D objects by identifying basic features or 'geons'.

Geons

The basic geometric shapes that make up complex objects in Biederman's recognition theory.

Figure-ground

The perceptual system's ability to separate objects (figures) from their background (ground).

Gestalt Laws of Grouping

Principles that describe how elements are grouped to form perceptual objects, including proximity and similarity.

Proximity

A Gestalt law stating that objects that are closer together tend to be perceived as a group.

Similarity

A Gestalt law indicating that items that are similar in appearance are grouped together.

Continuity

A law stating that we perceive smooth, continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones.

Closure

The tendency to perceive incomplete figures as complete by filling in missing information.

Common fate

The Gestalt principle stating that elements moving in the same direction and speed are perceived as a group.

Ecological Direct Perception

J.J. Gibson's theory that perception of the external world is direct and immediate, relying on rich optic flow fields.

Ambiguities of Retinal Projections

The concept that the retinal image can be interpreted in multiple ways based on various lines.

Constructivist Approach

The theory that sensory systems construct internal representations of the world based on experiences.

Figure-Ground Organization

The process by which the perceptual system divides visual input into distinct figures and background.

Camouflage

A situation where it is difficult to separate figure from ground, making objects hard to identify.

Subjective Contours

Optical illusions that suggest the presence of an edge or contour where none actually exists.