Joel Norman

Two visual systems and two theories of perception: An attempt to reconcile the constructivist and ecological approaches

The two contrasting theoretical approaches to visual perception, the constructivist and the ecological, are briefly presented and illustrated through their analyses of space and size perception. Earlier calls for their reconciliation and unification are reviewed. Neurophysiological, neuropsychological, and psychophysical evidence for the existence of two quite distinct visual systems, the ventral and the dorsal, is presented. These two perceptual systems differ in their functions; the ventral systems central function is that of identification, while the dorsal system is mainly engaged in the visual control of motor behavior. The strong parallels between the ecological approach and the functioning of the dorsal system, and between the constructivist approach and the functioning of the ventral system are noted. It is also shown that the experimental paradigms used by the proponents of these two approaches match the functions of the respective visual systems. A dual-process approach to visual perception emerges from this analysis, with the ecological-dorsal process transpiring mainly without conscious awareness, while the constructivist-ventral process is normally conscious. Some implications of this dual-process approach to visual-perceptual phenomena are presented, with emphasis on space perception.

What is rotated in mental rotation

Two hypotheses regarding mental rotation were contrasted. If subjects rotate each stimulus image to the upright (the image rotation hypothesis), then response time should depend solely on the extent of angular deviation from the upright. But if subjects rotate their frame of reference to match that of the disoriented stimulus (the frame rotation hypothesis), then response time should vary with the angular deviation between the current stimulus and the preceding stimulus. In four experiments, one involving normal and reflected letters (Experiment 1) and the other three involving lexical decisions on Hebrew letter strings (Experiments 2, 3A, and 3B), much stronger evidence for the image rotation hypothesis was found, though weak but systematic effects of frame rotation were also obtained. Increased likelihood that the same orientation would be repeated (Experiment 4) did not yield any stronger frame rotation effects. Also there was no indication of consistent individual differences in the preference for the frame rotation strategy (Experiment 3B). Additional findings pertinent to the application of the mental rotation paradigm to word recognition were discussed.

Mental rotation and visual familiarity

Mental rotation functions often evidence a curvilinear trend indicating relative indifference to small departures from the upright. In Experiment 1, this was true only for normal letters whereas reflected letters yielded a largely linear rotation function. This suggested that the internal representation of familiar visual patterns is characterized by broad orientation tuning that allows recognition despite small disorientations. Since familiar stimuli are often encountered slightly tilted from the upright, broad orientation tuning may reflect this ecological distribution. Experiment 2, however, indicated the possible involvement of two additional processes. Subjects were first trained on unfamiliar nonsense characters that appeared only in their “upright” positions. This was followed by a normal-reflected mental rotation task on these characters. Initially, rotation functions were more curvilinear for normal than for reflected characters. This suggested that practice with upright stimuli automatically contributes to broad tuning. Further practice resulted in a curvilinear trend for reflected characters as well, despite the fact that they appeared with equal probability in all orientations. This suggested that the very process of mentally rotating stimuli to the upright orientation increases insensitivity to slight departures from this orientation. Experiment 3 established that the different functions found for normal and reflected characters were due to stimulus rather than response factors.

Spatial frequency filtering and target identification

Twenty subjects identified filtered pictures of previously learned target stimuli. Five filters were utilized: 3 two-octave wide band-pass and 2 complementary (same cutoff) high- and low-pass. Response times and per cent errors were used to assess performance. The filtered pictures were presented at two sizes: to ten subjects at twice the size presented to the other ten. The results indicated that higher spatial frequencies contribute more to the identification task than do the low spatial frequencies, but also that neither low nor very high frequencies are redundant for identification. It was also seen that both the proximal (c/deg) and the distal (c/picture) scales of spatial frequency measurement are involved in the identification process.

Why is word recognition impaired by disorientation while the identification of single letters is not

Past research has shown that speed of identifying single letters or digits is largely indifferent to orientation, whereas the recognition of single words or connected text is markedly disrupted by disorientation. In a series of four experiments, we attempted to reconcile these findings. The results suggest that disorientation does not impair the identification of the characters but disrupts the perception of their spatial arrangement. When spatial order information is critical for distinguishing between different stimuli, disorientation is disruptive because some rectification process is required to restore order information. Utilizing the similarity between the letter B and the number 13, we found strong effects of orientation when a stimulus was interpreted as the two-digit number 13 but not when interpreted as the single letter B. This, however, occurred only when the set of numbers to be classified included permutations of the same digits (Experiments 1 and 2). Odd-even decisions on single-digit and two-digit numbers (Experiment 3) yielded strong effects of stimulus orientation for order-dependent numbers (e.g., 32), weaker effects for order-independent numbers (e.g., 24), and none for repeated-digit (e.g., 22) or single-digit numbers. Classification time for two-letter Hebrew words evidenced strong effects of orientation for words that differed only in letter order but much weaker effects for words that had no letters in common, even when these were embedded within some words that did (Experiment 4).

Establishing global and local correspondence between successive stimuli: The holistic nature of backward alignment.

Reflection decisions on alphanumeric characters display systemic effects of disorientation, suggesting that subjects mentally rotate the stimulus to the upright (the uprighting process). However, response time also increases with increasing angular disparity between the current and preceding orientations. This occurs only when the current stimulus is brought into congruence with the preceding one (the backward alignment process). In the present study, we examined the hypothesis that the transformation that occurs in backward alignment in holistic even in tasks in which the uprighting process is likely to be piecemeal. Evidence supporting this hypothesis is presented on the basis of tasks requiring either classification of numbers (Experiments 1 and 3) and words (Experiment 2), or mirror image discrimination on letter pairs (Experiment 4). The results indicated that backward alignment establishes global correspondence between successive stimuli and is indifferent to local correspondence at the level of the constituent elements. The establishment of this global correspondence decreases with the number of elements in the stimulus (Experiment 5), but its effects are still observed for four-letter strings (Experiment 6).

Recognition of rotated letters: extracting invariance across successive and simultaneous stimuli

Response time (RT) for identifying single letters is usually indifferent to disorientation, but in Experiment 1 RT increased with the angular deviation from that of the preceding letter (ADP). This occurs only when the same letter is repeated, which suggests a process of backward alignment. RT again increased with ADP when the same letter was repeated in the same format (normal or mirror-reflected: Experiment 2). These findings were replicated for a same-different task by using 2 simultaneously presented letters (Experiment 3). Experiments 4 and 5 focused on stimuli that are related by a rotation in depth and suggested that transformation in the depth plane may facilitate judgments of sameness and that backward alignment can occur for different views of the same three-dimensional shape. The results suggest the operation of a pattern-recognition mechanism that relies on the extraction of invariance over temporally or spatially contiguous events.

Direct and indirect perception of size

Three experiments, using a reaction time paradigm, examine the direct (stimulus bound) and indirect (mediational inference) approaches to size perception. Subjects determine which of two stimuli is the larger when the two can be at different egocentric distances. The effects of two variables on reaction times are examined—distal ratio, the ratio of physical sizes of the stimuli, and proximal ratio, the ratio of the angular projections of the stimuli on the retina. In Experiment 1, both ratios are found to affect reaction times, with the proximal ratios yielding the larger effect, more in line with the predictions of the indirect approach. But the results of Experiments 2 and 3 indicate that distance is taken into greater account, the more similar the distal sizes of the stimuli. In one stimulus condition, distance appears not to affect reaction times. It is suggested that direct size perception occurs for large stimulus differences, indirect size perception for smaller differences. The identical results of the two experiments, one with and one without texture, point to some variable other than texture occlusion or interception as the stimulus for direct size perception. Some aspect of distance from the eye-level plane is suggested as an alternative.

Ecological Psychology and the Two Visual Systems: Not to Worry!

Michaels (2000) expressed concerns about the implications of the notion of 2 visual systems (Milner & Goodale, 1995) for ecological psychology. This leads her to suggest a decoupling of perception and action, by which action is separate from perception. It is suggested that although Michaels noted, on the one hand, that Milner and Goodales approach to perception is a constructivist one, she mistakenly adopts their view that separates vision for perception from vision for action. An alternative position is presented, based on a recent article (Norman, in press), in which the parallels between the 2 visual systems, dorsal and ventral, and the 2 theoretical approaches, ecological and constructivist, are elucidated. According to this dual-process approach to perception, both systems are perceptual systems. The ecological-dorsal system is the system that picks up information about the ambient environment allowing the organism to negotiate it. It is suggested that this type of perception always processes the relevant information for action and that there is no need to sever the perception-action coupling. Ecological psychology and the 2 visual systems are quite compatible, and there is no need for concern.

Use of the informational difference as a target conspicuity measure

The Informational Difference (InDiff) is a measure of the difference between two image sets. Previous work has shown that it can be used to explain result of important target recognition experiments involving human observers. In this paper we present the results of investigations on the suitability of using the InDiff as a measure of target conspicuity. First, the InDiff is defined and adapted to measuring the difference between two images, one containing a target on a background and the other - containing only the background. Second, we present results of two experiments involving human observers: In one experiment, gray level images of complex scenes were presented to the observers; the second experiment involved color images. The response times for detecting and of recognizing targets in these images were measured and the InDiff values for the images were calculated. Correlation coefficients of 0.60 - 0.85 were found between the InDiff values and the following quantities: Detection speed in both experiments, recognition speed in the gray-level experiment. Significant relations were found between the probability of correct detection or recognition and a quantity based on the InDiff, in the gray-level experiment. Finally we discuss possible applications of these findings and suggest extension to the formalism.