Handbook of Psychology, Volume 4: Experimental Psychology

CHAPTER 4

Foundations of Visual Perception

MICHAEL KUBOVY, WILLIAM EPSTEIN, AND SERGEI GEPSHTEIN

87

THEORIES AND FOUNDATIONAL QUESTIONS 87
Four Theories 87
Eight Foundational Questions 89
PSYCHOPHYSICAL METHODS 96
Threshold Theories 97
Signal Detection Theory 103
The ROC Curve; Estimating d
105
Energy Thresholds and Observer Thresholds 105
Some Methods for Threshold Determination 105

THE “STRUCTURE” OF THE VISUAL ENVIRONMENT

AND PERCEPTION 110

Regularities of the Environment 110

Redundancy and Covariation 111

Co-occurrence Statistics of

Natural Contours 112

REFERENCES 116

This chapter contains three tutorial overviews of theoretical
and methodological ideas that are important to students of
visual perception. From the vast scope of the material we
could have covered, we have chosen a small set of topics that
form the foundations of vision research. To help fill the in-
evitable gaps, we have provided pointers to the literature,
giving preference to works written at a level accessible to a
beginning graduate student.
First, we provide a sketch of the theoretical foundations
of our field. We lay out four major research programs (in the
past they might have been called “schools”) and then discuss
how they address eight foundational questions that promise
to occupy our discipline for many years to come.
Second, we discuss psychophysics, which offers indis-
pensable tools for the researcher. Here we lead the reader
from the idea of threshold to the tools of signal detection
theory. To illustrate our presentation of methodology we have
not focused on the classics that appear in much of the sec-
ondary literature. Rather, we have chosen recent research that
showcases the current practice in the field and the applicabil-
ity of these methods to a wide range of problems.
The contemporary view of perception maintains that per-
ceptual theory requires an understanding of our environment
as well as the perceiver. That is why in the third section we

ask what the regularities of the environment are, how may

they be discovered, and to what extent perceivers use them.

Here too we use recent research to exemplify this approach.

Reviews of the research on higher visual processes are

available in this volume in the chapters by Palmer and by

Proffitt and Caudek.

THEORIES AND FOUNDATIONAL QUESTIONS

Four Theories

Four theoretical approaches have dominated psychology of

perception in the twentieth century: cognitive constructivism,

Gestalt theory, ecological realism, and computational con-

structivism.

Cognitive Constructivism

According to cognitive constructivism, perceptual processing

involves inductive inference or intelligent problem solving.

Perceptual processing operates beyond one’s awareness and

attempts to construct the best description of the situation by

combining the facts of occurrent stimulation with general and

context-specific knowledge. These cognitive processes are not

thought to be specially designed for the problems of percep-

tion; they are the same cognitive operations that are at work in

conscious inference and problem solving. Accordingly, the

The writing of this chapter was supported by NEI grant R01 EY
12926-06.