ABSTRACT
The main thread weaving through my work over the past 20 years (and thus through the previous chapters) has been an abiding interest in the spatial representations used to reflect what we perceive and believe to be the real world. Space seems to provide the glue that holds our perceptual worlds together so that we can move and act in a manner that is most beneficial for survival. Our sense of vision starts with an analysis of spatially tuned spectral features of the environment but ends with a complete scene that is spatially meaningful. Global spaces are navigated, and the spatial configurations we call objects provide valuable information about where we should attend or look next, what we should avoid, what information we might need for the future, and when to make a decision to act. Space can also be mentally transformed in the mind’s eye, dragging its parts (e.g., objects) with it, and it provides a mental workbench for daydreams and problem solving. Without a reasonably accurate representation of space as it exists “out there,” we would indeed be left with the “buzzing, booming confusion” that William James suggested we are all born with.
