Handbook of Experimental Phenomenology: Visual Perception of Shape, Space and Appearance

by Liliana Albertazzi

Overview

While the scientific study of vision is well-advanced and its concepts are widely agreed, there is still no universally accepted theory of qualitative visual appearances. Using such a theory, what we generally call objects in perception would effectively become collections of secondary qualities such as shape, direction, colour, transparency and luminosity, unified by the mind of the perceiver. Visual perception would thus become integrated into cognitive psychology, allowing for a more systematic and more broadly useful view than that offered by highly focused neuropsychological research.

Leading researchers around the world have taken up this challenge, and a body of knowledge has emerged as the new and interdisciplinary field of experimental phenomenology. This state-of-the-art handbook presents that knowledge, along with contextual material and new developments centered on the analysis of appearances. This emerging field has relevance and potential applications across a wide range of disciplines, and the stellar contributor list includes cognitive scientists, physicists, experimental psychologists, architectural designers, mathematicians and philosophers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118329078
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	03/15/2013
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	560
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Liliana Albertazzi is a Principal Investigator at the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMEC), and Professor at the Department of Humanities of Trento University, Italy. Her research investigates phenomenal qualities, and the nature of perceptual space/time and visual operations. She has led a major international project to develop an accurate descriptive theory of appearances on an experimental basis. She is the editor of Perception Beyond Inference: The Information Content of Visual Processes (2011).

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Table of Contents

About the Editor vii

About the Contributors ix

Preface xiii

Experimental Phenomenology: An Introduction 1
Liliana Albertazzi

Part I Linking Psychophysics and Qualities 37

1 Inferential and Ecological Theories of Visual Perception 39
Joseph S. Lappin

2 Public Objects and Private Qualia: The Scope and Limits of Psychophysics 71
Donald D. Hoffman

3 The Attribute of Realness and the Internal Organization of Perceptual Reality 91
Rainer Mausfeld

4 Multistable Visual Perception as a Gateway to the Neuronal Correlates of Phenomenal Consciousness: The Scope and Limits of Neuroscientifi c Analysis 119
Theofanis I. Panagiotaropoulos and Nikos K. Logothetis

5 Phenomenal Qualities and the Development of Perceptual Integration 145
Mariann Hudák, Zoltan Jakab, and Ilona Kovács

Part II Qualities in Space, Time, and Motion 163

6 Surface Shape, the Science and the Looks 165
Jan J. Koenderink

7 Experimental Phenomenology of Visual 3D Space: Considerations from Evolution, Perception, and Philosophy 181
Dhanraj Vishwanath

8 Spatial and Form-Giving Qualities of Light 205
Sylvia C. Pont

9 Image Motion and the Appearance of Objects 223
Katja Dörschner

10 The Role of Stimulus Properties and Cognitive Processes in the Quality of the Multisensory Perception of Synchrony 243
Argiro Vatakis

Part III Appearances 265

11 Appearances From a Radical Standpoint 267
Liliana Albertazzi

12 How Attention Can Alter Appearances 291
Peter U. Tse, Eric A. Reavis, Peter J. Kohler, Gideon P. Caplovitz, and Thalia Wheatley

13 Illusion and Illusoriness: New Perceptual Issues and New Phenomena 317
Baingio Pinna

14 Qualitative Inference Rules for Perceptual Transparency 343
Osvaldo Da Pos and Luigi Burigana

15 The Perceptual Quality of Color 369
Anya Hurlbert

16 The Aesthetic Appeal of Visual Qualities 395
Gert van Tonder and Branka Spehar

Part IV Measurement and Qualities 415

17 Psychophysical and Neural Correlates of the Phenomenology of Shape 417
Irving Biederman

18 What Are Intermediate-Level Visual Features? 437
Steven W. Zucker

19 Basic Colors and Image Features: The Case for an Analogy 449
Lewis D. Griffin

20 Measuring the Immeasurable: Quantitative Analyses of Perceptual Experiments 477
Luisa Canal and Rocco Micciolo

21 The Non-Accidentalness Principle for Visual Perception 499
Agnès Desolneux, Lionel Moisan, and Jean-Michel Morel

Name Index 515

Subject Index 529

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Systematic concern with visual appearances is as oldas modern science but it has not been pursued with the consistency accorded to visual processing.  Galileo interrogated appearances in contrast to the optical approach heralded in his day by Kepler and Scheiner. Now the study of appearances is enjoying a renaissance due in no small part to the novel techniques of experimental phenomenology so clearly expounded in this book.  Its practitioners are neither unified in their methods nor in their theories but they do share dissatisfactions with analyses of perception that sidestep the subjective dimensions which are fundamental features of our experience.—Nicholas Wade, Emeritus Professor, University of Dundee.

This Handbook brings together a distinguished collection of thinkers and researchers who address the subjective nature of visual perception as a science in its own right and who have developed a variety of new methods and concepts to investigate it. This could become an important book that redresses the balance of discussion and debate about what 'seeing' is, and its role in our mental lives.—Mark Georgeson, Professor of Vision Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham.