Brain's vision secrets unraveled














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1 / 5 (3) Feb 03, 2013
A new study doesn't mean that the same discovery is a new discovery. This has been shown before.
not rated yet Feb 03, 2013
I suggest there are discrete stages in visual recognition. The first stage is Saccade integration, where small movements caused by perspective and paralax are used to maintian object focus by feedback to the eye muscles. The feedback loops created by causal experience in success or failure at this task is used for object identification.

For example if a cube is observed from the front and the top left corner focused on by the eye, there must be a mechanism to keep looking at the corner when the head moves or eyes wiggle or the cube moves. The pattern of eye corrections needed to keep focus on the corner while the cube turns and the unique distractions/focal points of the cube (other corners rotated into view or moved) are all the factors necessary for identifying an object as a simplified concept (a cube). Trying to directly comprehend a large unsimplified graphic is impossibly difficult compared to pattern recognition of saccade corrections to eye muscles.
not rated yet Feb 03, 2013
Are there any reported cases of studying people who have lost the use of their eye muscles needed for saccades? My guess is they'll show greatly diminished ability to recognize objects if their eye muscles are unable to move. They'll probably try to move their head uncontrollably when seeking to identify objects if their eyes are unable to move. I suspect they may not be able to distinguish even simple shapes such as a square vs a triangle vs a star without saccade integration.

Scale is important in Saccade integration so testing with a small square occupying 2% of the visual field might yield different results than a large square occupying 60% of the visual field. I think the same mechanism must work for smaller scale object recognition, but this could be tested by timing statistics for object recognition times for various scaled geometric shapes. You would need to test this in a dark room with single monitor. So no visual distractions like with eye exams.