How the human visual system determines the lightness of a surface,
that is, its whiteness, blackness, or grayness, remains--like vision
in general--a mystery. In fact, we have not even been able to create a
machine that can determine, through an artificial vision system,
whether an object is white, black, or gray. Although the
photoreceptors in the eye are driven by light, the light reflected by
a surface does not reveal its shade of gray. Depending upon the level
of illumination, a surface of any shade of gray can reflect any amount
of light.In _Seeing Black and White_ Alan Gilchrist ties together over
30 years of his own research on lightness, and presents the first
comprehensive, historical review of empirical work on lightness,
covering the past 150 years of research on images ranging from the
simple to the complex. He also describes and analyzes the many
theories of lightness--including his own--showing what each can and
cannot explain. Gilchrist highlights the forgotten-yet-exciting work
done in the first third of the twentieth century, describing several
crucial experiments and examining the brilliant but nearly unknown
work of the Hungarian gestalt theorist, Lajos Kardos.Gilchrists review
also includes a survey of the pattern of lightness errors made by
humans, many of which result in delightful illusions. He argues that
because these errors are not random, but systematic, they are the
signature of our visual software, and so provide a powerful tool that
can reveal how lightness is computed. Based on this argument and the
concepts of anchoring, grouping, and frames of reference, Gilchrist
presents a new theoretical framework that explains an unprecedented
array of lightness errors. As both the first comprehensive overview of
research on lightness and the first unified presentation of Gilchrists
new theoretical framework _Seeing Black and White_ will be an
invaluable resource for vision scientists, cognitive psychologists,
and cognitive neuroscientists.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780190293154
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter