Re: Gibson

[Al Bregman <bregman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Christian,

I think we are on the same wavelength.  Your Mezger example was
very interesting and I didn't know about it before.  Our library
only has the German version and I read German only painfully
slowly with a dictionary.  Would you know whether it has been
translated into English?

The transformations you mention below all preserve the relation
"next to" in both X and Y.  I believe that the brain can adapt to
such transformations.  But note that the transformation that I
proposed does not preserve "next to" relations.  Do you think
that under these circumstances, the Gestalt laws of proximity and
good continuation (in the world) would have the same effects
after transformation to the B movie?

Al

----------------------------------------------------------------
Albert S. Bregman, Emeritus Professor
Fax & phone: +1 (514) 484-2592
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> Your movie example deserves further consideration. If the pixel
> permutation were done in a retina-stable way, the brain would
probably
> be able to adapt to this permutation after some days or weeks.
Consider
> the famous experiments by Helmholtz with prism glasses and
follow-up
> studies with 180° turn-around glasses which showed the enormous
> flexibility of the brain to adapt to optical transformations.
The
> ability to make sense of the permuted movie proves that
something _is_
> in the outside world. I would call it physics, not meaning...
>
> - Christian
>
> > Another example: Suppose there were a device that took a
> > pixelized photo, A, and mapped each point in it onto an
output
> > photo, B.  If the mapping were:
> > Y (i,j) = X (i,j)
> > then the output photo would be a copy of the input.  Suppose,
> > instead, that we used a random, but fixed, function to do the
> > mapping such that, for example,
> > Y (1,1) = X (14, 201)
> > Y(1,2) = X (3113, 21)
> ...
>
> --
> Dr. Christian Kaernbach
> Institut fuer Allgemeine Psychologie
> Universitaet Leipzig
> Seeburgstr. 14-20     Tel.: +49 341 97-35968
> 04 103 Leipzig        Fax:  +49 341 97-35969
> Germany               http://www.kaernbach.de/
>