Visual Perception

Tom Cornsweet

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780323148214
• Topic: Ciencias biológicas
• Subtopic: Anatomía y fisiología humanas

Visual Perception explores fundamental topics underlying the field of visual perception, including the perception of brightness and color, the physics of light, and the optics of the eye. Although the text leans heavily on physical and physiological concepts, explanations of the relevant physics and physiology are considered. This book is organized into 16 chapters and begins with an overview of the relationship between information assimilation and the physiology of the visual system based on data gathered both in physiological and perceptual experiments. More specifically, this text discusses the nature of the human perceptual system in terms of the kinds of information that are assimilated from the world, and how this selection of information is governed by the structure of receptors and the neural circuits that are connected to them. The relationships between symbols and their corresponding physical and physiological variables are also examined. Finally, the book addresses the presence of strong lateral inhibition in the visual system and how it fits the concept of evolution. This book is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students, regardless of their academic backgrounds.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Visual Perception
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER II. THE EXPERIMENT OF HECHT, SCHLAER, AND PIRENNE
• CHAPTER III. THE PHYSICS OF LIGHT
• CHAPTER IV. QUANTAL FLUCTUATIONS
• CHAPTER V. THE ACTION OF LIGHT ON ROD PIGMENTS
• CHAPTER VI. THE EXCITATION OF RODS
• CHAPTER VII. CONES AND CONE PIGMENT
• CHAPTER VII. COLOR VISION I – DISCRIMINATIONS AMONG WAVELENGTH MIXTURES
• CHAPTER IX. COLOR VISION II – RETINAL COLOR SYSTEMS
• CHAPTER X. COLOR VISION III – THE PERCEPTION OF COLOR
• CHAPTER XI. THE PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF BRIGHTNESS – I SPATIAL INTERACTION IN THE VISUAL SYSTEM
• CHAPTER XII. PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF BRIGHTNESS – II MODULATION TRANSFER FUNCTIONS
• CHAPTER XIII. BRIGHTNESS AND COLOR CONSTANCY
• CHAPTER XIV. TEMPORAL PROPERTIES OF THE VISUAL SYSTEM
• CHAPTER XV. STIMULUS GENERALIZATION
• CHAPTER XVI. SPECULATIONS ON "HIGHER PROCESSES
• Appendix I: VISUAL ANGLE
• Appendix II: FILTER TRANSMISSION VERSUS DENSITY
• Appendix III: HOW TO BUILD AN OPHTHALMOSCOPE
• Appendix IV: DEMONSTRATION OF COLOR CONTRAST (COLORED SHADOWS)
• REFERENCES
• SUGGESTED GENERAL READINGS
• Author Index
• Subject Index