ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1, we noted that a fundamental question in visual perception is how rudimentary ‘meaningless’ sensory information arriving at the eye is translated into ‘meaningful’ visual information. Helmholtz (1925) had previously argued that the ambiguous sensory stimulation provided by an information cue needs to be progressively upgraded into a percept which is recognised and interpreted by the mind. This description is based on a model of mind-body dualism which underpins theories of perception and action in cognitive science, advocated originally by distinguished philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato and Descartes. Dualism provided the ideological basis for traditional cognitive psychology. The job of cue elaboration or information derivation is carried out by special cognitive processes and internalised devices, sometimes called knowledge structures or symbolic representations. These mental entities are considered particular to human beings (Blumberg and Wasserman 1995). They have the role of conveying meaning and understanding of the world to a perceiver from the static snapshots of the environment provided by the visual system (see Figure 6.1).
