title: Miracles of perception.
abstract: This paper draws a bird's eye view of various counter-intuitive characteristics of perception. Peculiar is that perception is a both tool and topic of its study. As a consequence, its output is easily mistaken for its input. Furthermore, its output is characterized by remarkable Gestalt features, such as mutual dependence of stimulus elements and detour solutions. Detour solutions require a complex perception process of testing countless optional pattern interpretations against a criterion. Likelihood is a plausible criterion for reasoning. For perception, however, the simplicity criterion is more appropriate. The consideration is that reasoning aims at establishing properties of distal objects whereas perception aims at establishing objects from proximal properties. The role of knowledge in perception seems plausible but often leads to conflicts. For instance, the assumption that knowledge about handedness is present in pattern representations conflicts with image mirror-image discrimination data. Moreover, knowledge does not provide an anchor for subjective time direction, but a Gestalt quality does.
authors.affiliation: Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, University of Nijmegen, PO Box 9104, Nijmegen 6500 HE, The Netherlands. e.leeuwenberg@nicki.kun.nl
authors.forename: Emanuel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Leeuwenberg
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012718:Set, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology