Classical Vision Theories: Understanding Perception and Cognition

This lecture discusses classical vision theories, focusing on how vision is understood through various psychological and philosophical frameworks. The instructor begins by defining what constitutes a theory, emphasizing its role in organizing knowledge and making predictions. Key theories such as structuralism, gestaltism, and ecological approaches are explored. Structuralism is likened to chemistry, where understanding complex systems requires breaking them down into smaller components. Gestaltism is introduced, highlighting that perception is more than just the sum of its parts, as demonstrated through visual illusions. The ecological approach emphasizes the relationship between perception and the environment, suggesting that our biases reflect real-world properties. The lecture concludes with constructivism, which posits that vision is an indeterminate inverse problem, requiring assumptions to reconstruct reality from sensory input. Throughout, the instructor illustrates how these theories apply to understanding human vision and perception, providing a comprehensive overview of the historical and conceptual landscape of vision science.