| Abstract: | Discusses an appropriate theoretical structure for the gestalt principles of visual form perception that is consistent with anatomical and neurophysiological knowledge and builds positively on it. It is suggested that much is known about the detailed psychophysics and physiology of mammalian visual systems, but there has been little study of the ways local processes in the visual system work cooperatively to produce the global phenomena of perception. The gestalt psychologists demonstrated perceptual organization but were hindered in their theorizing by the primitive knowledge at that time of how the brain operates and an inadequate model of cortical function. Recent discoveries in visual anatomy and physiology suggest that brain functions can be modeled in terms of one or more differentiable topological structures. Discussed are the visual manifold; holonomy, integrability, and visual contours; transversality and the principle of transverse control; interlude; and relation to the visual gestalt. It is concluded that (1) all the elements of a differential geometric structure can be identified within the primary visual processing system and (2) the major gestalt laws of perceptual organization follow naturally from the mathematical structure. (French abstract) (4 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
