Visual Perception

We do not see what we think we see exactly. When we look at a scene, we only see a few important details unless deliberately drawing attention to other parts of the image.

Visual perception is momentary, partial, and fragmentary. Bottom-up visual processing presets the brain with information about the whole field of vision, but top-down processes select which part of the scene gets our attention. The rest of the image remains a blur unless deliberately drawing attention to it. So, when we look at a picture (just a glance) we only see highlights.


The Brain works very much to make sense of pictures as in visual information.  Looking at complicated scenes activates processes and distinguish target objects. They eye is simply another extention of the brain with over 125 million light sensitive cells. I

There are 4 parts to seeing

1. Movement
2. Depth
3. Form
4. Color

One way to imagine visual perception is to think of an assembly line going throughout a route to make an end product. In the end you get a fully processed image. But in some people there will be less neuron's than average for a certain part of this route which can cause disease such as colorblindness.  

The dorsal route is involved with depth and motion. The dorsal route is responsible for charting the location and position of the object. In the end you get the object position, movement and some of size and shape. This path goes from temporal to frontal lobes.

However in the Ventral route the information flow from frontal to temporal lobes. Involving color and form, the ventral route identifies and sights different objects such as faces. This sight of a face will flow the information from the frontal lobe to the temporal lobe  The temporal lobe which is involved with memory will identify the shape.