Deniz Boz, Cog. Sci. M.A.

PSY228, Spring 14.

Assignment I, 17.03.2014.

1. Beau Lottos Talk and the Direct Perception Theory:

Direct perception, one of the two main approaches to perception, holds that we
have direct access to the world we experience, rather than our percepts as
mental interceders between us and the world. The proponents of this theory
claim that we see our world as it really is. Beau Lotto on the other hand, have a
very different point of view.

Throughout his talk, Lotto maintains that the context is what matters most,
rather than the stimulus itself, by determining how the brain will interpret a
given distal stimulus. In his examples, he clarifies his point by displaying two
identical visual stimuli first solely without context, and than illuminating their
natural surroundings. For instance, in one of his examples, we first see two
rectangular shapes, identical in every detail such as size, color, shape, etc., as the
projections of two different stimuli from the world to the back of our eye. When
he illuminates the context, it is revealed that these two shapes were projected
from two different context, one from a yellow surface, in shadow, facing left,
viewed through a pink glass, and the other from an orange surface, facing right,
viewed through a blueish glass. The distal stimuli impinging on our retina are
identical, put differently, as opposed to direct perceptionists view, are ambi-
guous, yet we can successfully perceive them with two different meanings. In
another example, he shows that a rotating diamond shaped frame can be

perceieved as turning in both directions. Here we see that again, a single distal
stimulus may have more than one meaning, in other words, be ambiguous, for
our brains.

To sum up, Lotto constantly corroborates the statement that the distal stimuli
are often ambiguous. His entire talk is a manifest against the direct perception
theory, with ingenious exemplars of stimulus ambiguity.

3. The Surgeon and the Spleen

a. The dorsal pathway of the visual system, originating from V1, is the where
pathway of the visual brain. As the name implies, this part of the visual system is
involved in processing of the spatial features of what is seen, such as location,
motion, direction, etc. On the other hand, ventral pathway of the visual system is
the what pathway. It is involved in processing of identification of visual stimuli,
such as shape, size, color, etc. This organization is no coincidence, since dorsal
pathway directs toward parietal lobe, where the sensory information is integra-
ted, and ventral pathway directs toward temporal lobe, where the sensory infor-
mation is processed, and the visual memories are retained.

b. During the surgery, the surgeon needs to identify which one of the structures
is the spleen. In this process, the ventral pathway steps in, his/her brain identi-
fies the structure by its characteristic features such as the shape and size. He/she
then will begin to remove the spleen. To perform this task, the dorsal pathway of
his/her visual system is activated, ensuring that the surgeon will cut the right
sides of the tissue in fine detail.