ABSTRACT
The remainder of this book reviews perceptual microtheories and presents an eclectic, multilevel, and taxonomic theory of visual perception. Underlying this attempt to bring some initial order to the widely diverse phenomena and data making up the empirical substance of this field is a basic premise that assert that there are identifiable levels (the six briefly introduced in Chapter 1) at which afferent signals undergo some critical information processing or transformation in a way that affects some subsequent perceptual response. I believe that, to the extent it is possible, specification of these critical informational processes or transforms is the best way to explain the various aspects of each perceptual phenomenon. Because I anticipate that this emphasis on process and processing levels may be the subject of a considerable amount of criticism, it is necessary to make explicit certain caveats and to clarify certain premises that have guided my thinking about this matter. It is also necessary to consider certain logical, empirical, and conceptual obstacles to theory development in perceptual psychology in order to appreciate some of the difficulties faced by anyone undertaking a macrotheoretical attack on perception. The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to introduce some of the basic thinking that underlies the rest of the book and to detail more specifically the nature of the taxonomic level theory of visual processes that is its essential internal structure.
