Eye of Horus

Psyc/Biol 240 - Psychology and Biology of Perception
Outline of Section 3 Lecture Topics


Below is an outline of the topics covered in lecture before Exam 3. The outline is not split into different
lectures. It is not a substitute for class lectures, but is intended only to help you organize your notes.

  1. Perception of Shape/Form
    1. Perceptual Organization - two historical viewpoints about
      how features are combined into objects
      1. Structuralism - Titchener, Berkeley
        1. Elementary Sensations
        2. Analytic introspection
      2. Gestalt Psychology - Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka
        1. Figure-Ground Segregation - rules
        2. Grouping Principles
        3. Principle of Pragnanz, Minimum Principle, Simplicity
        4. Perceptual Set
    2. Spatial Vision - The initial stages of form perception
      The Multiple-Channels Model/Spatial Frequency Theory
      1. What is Spatial Frequency?
      2. Sinusoidal Gratings - characteristics
        1. Amplitude/Contrast
        2. Frequency/Spatial Frequency (~bar width)
        3. SpatialPhase
        4. Orientation of grating
      3. The Multiple-Channels Model/Spatial Frequency Theory
        1. Simple cells as spatial-frequency detectors (and detectors of orientation, phase, and contrast)
        2. Definition of "channel"
      4. Examples illustrating the MCM approach
        1. How a square wave (striped pattern) contains many spatial frequencies
        2. Response of spatial-frequency channels to square wave vs sinewave
        3. Response of spatial-frequency channels to an edge
        4. Response of spatial-frequency channels to a textured pattern
        5. Examples of filtered images (images with some frequencies removed)
      5. The Human Contrast Sensitivity Function (CSF)
      6. Adaptation effects - The Tilt Aftereffect
    3. Perception of Objects
      1. The Binding Problem - Possible Solutions
        1. Synchronous Firing
        2. Feature Integration Theory (Treisman)
          1. Visual Search paradigm
          2. Parallel (pre-attentive, feature, pop-out) search
          3. Serial (attentional) search
          4. Feature conjuctions, illusory conjuctions
      2. Other evidence of the importance of attention in object perception
      3. Higher Visual Pathways in Object Perception
        1. Parvocellular pathway
        2. Object Constancy
        3. Inferotemporal cortex (area IT)
          1. primary vs elaborate IT neurons
          2. Size, location, and view invariance vs dependence
          3. "Face" cells
        4. Theories of Object Recognition
          1. View-Specific Representations (Tarr)
          2. Recognition by Components (Biederman)
        5. Visual Agnosia
          1. Apperceptive
          2. Associative
  2. Perception of Color
    1. The Visible Spectrum of electromagnetic radiation
    2. The Color Spindle/Cube - Three charaxteristics of perceived color
      1. Hue
      2. Brightness
      3. Saturation
    3. Determinants of perceived color
      1. Reflectance/Absorption spectrum
      2. Spectrum of light source
    4. Color Mixture
      1. Subtractive Color Mixture
      2. Additive Color Mixture - Three Laws,
        Newton's Revised Color Circle
        1. Law of Complementaries
        2. Law of Intermediates
        3. Grassman's Law - Metamers
    5. Trivariance of Color Vision - Young-Helmholtz Theory
      1. Why three primaries are necessary to produce all colors
      2. Color Afterimages explained
      3. Three cone types discovered (characteristics)
      4. Insufficiency of Young-Helmhotz Theory - What it doesn't explain
        1. Phenomenological - color naming,"good agreement" colors,
          "Imaginable mixtures"
        2. Colorblindness - perceived colors
        3. Color vision in the periphery
    6. Opponent-Process Theory - Hering
      1. Chromatic (B/Y, R/G) and Achromatic mechanisms
      2. Color-Opponent Ganglion Cells
      3. How OPT explains perceived color
      4. How OPT explains afterimages
      5. How OPT explains aspects of colorblindness
    7. Where in the brain is color processed?
      1. Color blobs in V1
      2. Cortical Area V4
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Updated July 26, 2002.