The mechanisms of Perception

Psychologist Dr. Doping talks about Gestalt psychologists’ researches, the perception of the third dimension and the ordering of objects in space.

In fact, to answer to all these questions is very difficult, because the image in the minds of immediately given and ready to see how it turned out, he lined up pretty hard. We can put forward some hypotheses about the mechanisms of perception, and then try to mimic this mechanism, causing the observer the illusion. And if you managed to fool the visual system, if possible, for example, to get to see a three-dimensional flat image, the image having one value, get perceived as having a totally different meaning, then our hypothesis about the mechanism was probably correct.

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In fact, these studies have mostly started in the XX century, because of the XIX century, psychologists came to the problem is simple. They assumed that any image of perception - it is simply the sum of sensations caused by exposure to which by association adds some past experience. It was only at the beginning of the XX century the first Gestalt psychologists suggested that, apparently, the image as a whole to the sum of its parts can not be reduced. And they, or rather one of the founders of this trend, Max Wertheimer, has pushed this idea illusion that just Wertheimer and described - so-called "apparent motion". Gestalt psychology, which loved to use Greek letters to denote different phenomena described by them, called it the phi phenomenon. The situation is very simple: we show two glowing lights in two different places, then right, then left. It seems to us that the movement takes place in the visual field. In this particular frequency light that moves from one point to another, with the other - with pure motion. Where does it come from - is unclear, because it can not be the thrill of all intermediate positions. And, strictly speaking, it was then that Gestalt psychologists go with this slogan - the whole to the sum of its parts can not be reduced. And as it was then being built?

And they begin to build an explanation of perception and its mechanisms on the basis of the then fashionable field of physics, put forward the assumption that actually processes in our minds are isomorphic, and are similar in form to the processes in the brain, and is isomorphic to the effects of the surrounding world. And just as the physics of the field uses the term forces in the electromagnetic field, Gestalt psychologists began to operate with concepts of perceptual forces that bind are close to each other elements of the field and restrain their "cobbled together" into a single indivisible image. In fact, all our perceptions, according to Gestalt psychology - is a game of connecting and restraining forces. And any perception of the final image - the result of finding the balance between them. Either way this is an equilibrium configuration, and its formation are certain laws which Gestalt psychologists identified as the "laws of perceptual organization", just describing the allocation of figures in the background. These are laws, such as the proximity of the elements in the visual field, or isolation, which allows to take a holistic figure even distant from each other elements, or similar, or the same motion, the law of common fate, or good continuation, but it's all so Either way, the implementation of the general principle regarding the fact that perceptual organization will be as good as at the moment the conditions allow, lead to opposing forces. But most importantly, that the Gestalt psychologists have described - is the selection of the objects that we perceive, allocation figures in our perception, ie the division of the visual field to the objects and all that is behind them in space. But the unanswered question: how, in fact, these figures are arranged in space? How we perceive their movement or stillness when moving yourself? We understand that for the object is in front of us?

As for the perception of the third dimension, the first there were not psychologists, and artists who have learned to create the illusion of the perception of the third dimension on a flat picture. And then the psychologists, analyzing how these illusions, so we perceive a third dimension, describe those characteristics that, when added to the retinal image, is likely to set the perception of space, the perception of the third dimension. First of all, it is described in the XV century Alberti linear perspective, it is added to the relative size of objects and the size of the familiar. The most powerful feature - a sign of the overlap. If we represent the two objects on the plane, and one overlaps the other, it is clearly one that overlaps closer. If we neatly slotted into the far object and place the dipped away to be visible through the slot, we will still seem like a distant object closer look because of the angle of bend is not able. It is a strong indication of depth perception - a shadow. We always assume the light source from above, and depending on how the objects cast shadows on one another as a shadow on the allocated themselves, we perceive them as having a certain amount in a certain way and are located in the space. Finally, in painting as a sign of open aerial perspective, blurring objects at a distance, the more all enjoyed the romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich.

But in fact, any work of realistic painting - is the set of all these features. And they work, if we see a still image, closing one eye, something like in the pictures. And what will happen if we start to move? Add another attribute. Moving, we perceive objects that are closer to us, as moving in the opposite direction, and the items are more like moving in the same direction. We can implement it on a flat screen, it is very often done in video games: run the screen in opposite directions at different speeds, and the farther from the center of the screen, from the point at which we look, the more quickly, and it seems to us that screen becomes a plane, leaving deep. Opening the second eye, we find another sign, in the main stereo vision - a sign of disparity or discrepancy display points on the retinas of the right and left eye, from which we can also derive depth information.

How to fool the visual system? Show on the right and left eyes slightly different images, so-called stereograms shifted relative to each other on the interocular distance or even superimposed on each other, but painted in red and blue colors. Watch them we can through anaglyph red-blue glasses - obtained a three-dimensional image. If you gently to mix parts of such images are obtained Autostereogram that can be seen with both eyes, as much as possible to parallelize the eye axis and pushing the image away. And in fact, the same signs of distance and depth of the work to ensure the constancy of our perception, the perception of the immutability of the size depending on the distance, the immutability of the perception of speed depending on the distance, shape of the object at different angles.

If we, as in the experiments Holueya and Boring, authors nuclear contextual theory of constancy of perception, will gradually cut these symptoms - for example, first by allowing a person to look not two eyes but only one, and then removing the linear perspective - we eventually can come to an almost complete lack of constancy of perception, a person will be judged on the basis of size alone retinal print. In another theory of constancy, in the theory of invariant relations in perception, it is assumed that we maintain a constant ratio between the perceived remoteness, the perceived size of the object and the angle of view. But, one way or another, tied to the sign of the distance. In a famous experiment with playing cards people showed three cards of different sizes on the same distance. Naturally, no one would have thought that psychologists make a fool of, so let's estimate the distance to the cards that are proportional to the change in size: the larger the map, the closer it seemed. Naturally, here it plays a role, and our knowledge of the world of our experience, according to which all the playing cards are always the same size. And, strictly speaking, it is the experience is mainly in the illusions of perception, which are called the subject that we are behind the perception of certain objects in the environment. And the main law in our perception, in regard to the objects and values is that we always perceive in accordance with the logic of the possible. We see the world as it might look like according to our knowledge about the world.

The most famous experiment, perhaps there had modern and unfortunately already deceased perception psychologist Richard Gregory. Experiments were very simple: he took plaster masks and the masks began to rotate, and the man all the time, it seemed that the mask is turned to face him, even if on the one hand, it has been painted, and the other not. Why? Because a person can not be concave. And even if it is contrary to the impact of, for example, featured the distance and depth, we start to try on the final image, do it without conflict, in accordance with the logic of the possible. The Internet is now very common so-called "dragon illusion," which, being absolutely motionless, for us "follows" when we move around it. Why? Because of this dragon concave muzzle. When we try to use the monocular motor parallax, a sign of remoteness associated with the moving object, and our knowledge that the dragon can not be concave faces, although we had never seen real dragons, wins our knowledge about the world, winning it is the logic possible.

Similarly, it is running the famous illusion of Adalbert Ames, the so-called "Ames Room" absolutely curve, but built according to the laws of strict linear perspective, when placed in that people are the same height seems the dwarfs, the giants because of the fact that some are closer , on the other. The fact that our visual system can not perceive the room as having a non-square or rectangular shape, and if the room is rectangular, again in accordance with invariant ratios perception we adjust the size of these people. If to put the familiar people, the illusion crumbles instantly. If the wife in such a show room of her husband, she saw her husband having their normal growth, and the room like some obviously incorrect. And in fact, here it is confounding not only the perception of objectivity, but also the installation, that is, depending on the context of perception. When we look at a particular object, we always perceive it in the context, but the context usually corresponds uniquely to unambiguous interpretation of the same object. But if you make an object ambiguous, for example, show three different people to the same circle surrounded by numbers, letters, or other geometric shapes, the first will see the number "0", the second - the letter "o", and the third - round.