Gestalt: The whole is greater than the sum of the modules
The figure is famous: a deceptively simple line drawing that at first glance resembles a vase and, at the next, a pair of human faces in profile. [N]erve circuits in the brain's visual center …organize information into a "whole" even as an individual's gaze and attention are focused on only one part, according to Johns Hopkins researchers writing in a recent issue of the journal Neuron.
"Our paper answers the century-old question of the basis of subconscious processes in visual perception, specifically, the phenomenon of figure-ground organization," said Rudiger von der Heydt, a professor in the Zanvyl Krieger Mind-Brain Institute. "Our work suggests that the system continuously organizes the whole scene, even though we usually are attending only to a small part of it."
The report, based on recordings of nerve cells in the visual cortex of macaque monkeys, suggests that this automatic processing of images is repeated each time an individual looks at something new, usually three to four times per second.
"The result of this organization is an internal data structure, quite similar to a database, that allows the attention mechanism to work efficiently," von der Heydt said. "An image can be compared with a bag of thousands of little Lego blocks in chaotic order. To pay attention to an object in space, the visual system first has to arrange this bag of blocks into useful 'chunks' and provide threads by which one or the other chunk can be pulled out for further processing."
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I prefer to think of these blocks as small and specialized modules. Larger modules, representing objects, are formed by combining these blocks. A few points of interest:
We are not aware of the process. With ambiguous pictures, we do notice the result. Otherwise, we jump to an inference about the real world. The underlying processes are done by the quiet modules.
The process is dynamic. The image is reprocessed several times a second.
The reprocessing is influenced by something that is potentially under conscious control. You start the reprocessing by shifting your attention. You probably influence the result by the new focus of attention. In the vase-faces figure, you can back off to see the faces. Or look at the center to see the vase.
Shifting viewpoint. Changing perspective. New meaning for the term “head cocked to the side.” And maybe another view on why the Thinkerer suggests those Cuepons or Head Views. The cognitive parts of the brain must also have to reprocess when a new idea intrudes.
http://thinkerer.org/Cuepons/CueIntro.htm
http://thinkerer.org/HeadView/HeadIntro.htm
The visual system is built to force eye movements and reprocessing. Not so the cognitive system. A cognitive system can get stuck in a rut. If that were not so, we would not have the expression. And we would not know what it means. And we would not see why a randomly chosen Cuepon could jog someone’s thinking out of a rut.
"Our paper answers the century-old question of the basis of subconscious processes in visual perception, specifically, the phenomenon of figure-ground organization," said Rudiger von der Heydt, a professor in the Zanvyl Krieger Mind-Brain Institute. "Our work suggests that the system continuously organizes the whole scene, even though we usually are attending only to a small part of it."
The report, based on recordings of nerve cells in the visual cortex of macaque monkeys, suggests that this automatic processing of images is repeated each time an individual looks at something new, usually three to four times per second.
"The result of this organization is an internal data structure, quite similar to a database, that allows the attention mechanism to work efficiently," von der Heydt said. "An image can be compared with a bag of thousands of little Lego blocks in chaotic order. To pay attention to an object in space, the visual system first has to arrange this bag of blocks into useful 'chunks' and provide threads by which one or the other chunk can be pulled out for further processing."
----
I prefer to think of these blocks as small and specialized modules. Larger modules, representing objects, are formed by combining these blocks. A few points of interest:
We are not aware of the process. With ambiguous pictures, we do notice the result. Otherwise, we jump to an inference about the real world. The underlying processes are done by the quiet modules.
The process is dynamic. The image is reprocessed several times a second.
The reprocessing is influenced by something that is potentially under conscious control. You start the reprocessing by shifting your attention. You probably influence the result by the new focus of attention. In the vase-faces figure, you can back off to see the faces. Or look at the center to see the vase.
Shifting viewpoint. Changing perspective. New meaning for the term “head cocked to the side.” And maybe another view on why the Thinkerer suggests those Cuepons or Head Views. The cognitive parts of the brain must also have to reprocess when a new idea intrudes.
http://thinkerer.org/Cuepons/CueIntro.htm
http://thinkerer.org/HeadView/HeadIntro.htm
The visual system is built to force eye movements and reprocessing. Not so the cognitive system. A cognitive system can get stuck in a rut. If that were not so, we would not have the expression. And we would not know what it means. And we would not see why a randomly chosen Cuepon could jog someone’s thinking out of a rut.
posted by Selby Evans at 8:46 AM
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