Surfaces & Organization
You can tell which object is in front at a T-junction, even though the image itself is flat—what cue is doing that work?
What is occlusion?
A neuron fires more when light hits the center of its receptive field than the surround—what type of cell is this?
What is an on-center cell?
A patient can describe parts of an object but cannot identify what it is—what general condition is this?
What is agnosia?
When you move your head, nearby objects shift more than distant ones—what cue is this?
What is motion parallax?
Even a few moving dots can make you recognize a walking person—what type of motion is this?
What is biological motion?
Two identical gray patches look different because one appears to be in shadow—what process is responsible?
What is lightness constancy?
You see gray spots at intersections in a grid illusion—what underlying mechanism explains this?
What is lateral inhibition?
You recognize a face instantly but struggle when it’s upside down—what kind of processing is being disrupted?
What is holistic processing?
Parallel lines in the world appear to converge in an image—what cue is this?
What is linear perspective?
After staring at movement in one direction, a stationary object appears to move the opposite way—what illusion is this?
What is the motion aftereffect?
A contour appears where no physical edge exists (like the Kanizsa triangle)—what is this phenomenon called?
What are subjective contours?
A neuron responds best to a specific angle of a bar of light—what property is being tuned?
What is orientation selectivity?
Neurons respond to combinations of features that only make sense as part of familiar shapes—what level of representation is this?
What are object parts (mid-level features)?
Your brain estimates size by combining retinal image size with perceived distance—what principle is this?
What is size constancy?
Motion helps you separate objects from background when static cues fail—what problem is being solved?
What is figure-ground segmentation?
You instantly group dots into rows instead of columns because spacing is smaller in one direction—what principle explains this?
What is proximity?
A neuron stops firing when a line extends beyond a certain length—what kind of cell shows this?
What is an endstopped (hypercomplex) cell?
If you damage a system specialized for faces, you may still recognize objects but not people—what deficit is this?
What is prosopagnosia?
If you focus on your finger and then switch to something far away, the muscular effort required to change focus provides what kind of depth information?
What is accommodation?
A striped pattern viewed through a long, narrow window appears to move straight up and down instead of diagonally—what limitation of motion perception is causing this error?
What is the aperture problem?
A region looks like a surface rather than empty space because its texture is continuous and bounded—what property is being assigned?
What is figure-ground organization?
Instead of detecting edges, this framework describes vision as decomposing images into waves of different frequencies.
What is spatial frequency analysis?
The idea that recognition emerges from combining simpler features into increasingly complex ones reflects what general approach?
What is hierarchical processing?
Depth perception from differences between the two eyes’ views depends on comparing what?
What is binocular disparity?
Changes in relative speed across a surface allow you to perceive 3D structure from movement—what ability is this?
What is recovering depth from motion?