Temporal Dynamics in Visual Perception

This chapter starts out by contrasting the static image-processing tradition in vision research to the moving-observer tradition in ecological psychology. As visual neuroscience and computer vision began to test awake behaving monkeys and robots, respectively, instead of motionless observers, some of the most vexing problems of image processing melted away. Feedback projections from higher visual brain areas down to lower visual brain areas appear to exert a goal-oriented tuning of the perceptual process. Moreover, oculomotor processes are shown to play a role in perceptual decisions, suggesting a blurring of the lines between visual perception and visual cognition and visuomotor processes. The chapter focuses especially on visual search processes and simulations of linear increases in reaction time resulting from a parallel-processing model.