Perception I: Separating the World into Objects
HOW DO WE BREAK UP THE ENDLESS STREAM OF STIMULATION THAT HITS OUR SENSES IN ORDER TO PERCEIVE SHAPES AND FORMS?
1. Perceptual segregation
2. Form perception
a. Two viewpoints – early Empiricists versus Neo-nativists.
b. Evidence for innate perceptual mechanisms: newborn chickens, human infants, and feature detectors.
c. Gestalt theory and its laws of perceptual organization:
- Proximity
- Similarity
- Continuity (good continuation)
- Orientation
- Simplicity
- Closure and the “subjective contour” phenomenon
- Figure/ground
CONCLUSION: The human perceptual system creates order out of chaos. It is an ACTIVE PROCESS.