The day
C/O
L
O/R
…drained away…
visual +Intelligence
Chapter 5…
The Case of “Jonathan I”

Received concussion through minor car accident

Lost color vision and only saw Grays. Science previously assumed
color vision represented inherent properties of the external world, not a
mental construction.

Inferior occipital lobe, lingual fusiform gyri

V

When lingual fusiform gyri is magnetically stimulated, see colored
4: DisCovered to Pro Cess CO/L/OR
R-I-n-g-s

or
HALOS. Light is not required for This.
Damage LEFT HEMISPHERE (lingual and fusiform gyri)
 LOSE color in RIGHT visual field
Visual Examples

The Neon Worm:
The Blue on the
Black lines makes
the blue appear to
glow like a neon
sign.
 A photometer
cannot detect this
 It is our mental
construction


Red and Black Star:
When the red star is
made part of the black
star, a disk seems to
appear.
Why is it such?

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49 Colored Squares: identical inks can appear as
different colors depending on their visual proximity to
other colors.
Different inks can appear as the same color,
depending on the lighting.
Colored squares hit by lights opposite in color
(R,G,B,Y) will appear as a single color
These illusions support the idea that
color construction is not an “isolated”
event.
“When you construct color you do not just
construct color. Instead you construct several
visual properties at once, and try to make them all
mutually consistent: you organize your visual
world into objects, you endow those objects with
three-dimensional shapes, place light sources that
illuminate those objects, and assign color to both
the light sources and the objects.”
(Hoffman, p. 113-114)
“I don’t remember
doing any of that!
It must all be…
UNCONSCIOUS ?!”
-Joseph
Shmofenheimer

RULE 21: We interpret GRADUAL Changes
of hue, saturation and brightness in images
as… CHANGES in ILLUMINATION.
» Example: a shirt that looks a slightly different color
indoors than outdoors

RULE 22: We interpret ABRUPT Changes of
hue, saturation and brightness in images
as… CHANGES in SURFACES.
» Examples: corners, object boundaries, and color
changes like ink on paper

RULE 23: We construct
as few light sources as
possible to minimize
complexity.

RULE 24: We habitually
place light sources as
emanating from
overhead.

Muffin Pan:
demonstrates the
influence of light
sources and shading on
perception.
Rules Regarding Perceived Brightness
“…you use the relative luminance’s of regions both within and between
groups to create the grays you see.”
(Hoffman, p. 119)

Figure devised by
Michael White, PhD
Ted Adelson’s “corrugated
Mondrian”


Notice how A looks darker than B
Alan Gilchrist, PhD: we group each surface with
those that lie in the same 3D plane
Surface colors and grays are
not constructed in isolation.

Colors and grays are constructed in the context of a
mutually consistent coordinated construction of
surface shapes, surface colors, light sources and
transparent filters in as simple a manner as possible.
Why do we utilize these rules for
constructing what we See?

We are Cognitive Misers

“Budget” metaphor for the consistency: each
solution has a different ‘cost’ associated with it.

“Set crew” metaphor for the consistency: relative
distribution of labor results in different associated
costs.

Four markers of different subprocesses that
synergize to construct the most specific and
cognitively “cheapest” image possible.
Transparent Filters


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Ted Adelson’s argyle pattern
Left Diamond looks brighter than Right Diamond
because of dark filter
Compensate for filters by calibrating inferred
brightness
Rules for Constructing Filters

RULE 25: Filters don’t invert
lightness. Since B is darker
than A, D must be darker
than C to logically create a
C/D filter

RULE 26: Filters decrease
lightness differences.
Difference between C & D
must be smaller than
difference between A & B to
construct a filter
Spatial Relations and Filters

o
Minima Rule and Part Boundaries: Affect our
construction of transparency
Where cusps meet implies a BOUNDARY, unlike the
previous rectangular example, because the cusps
meet at the color barrier.
In Summary:

For Grays and Colors, we use:
– Light
– Luminescence at focal point and the global image
– Filters
– image shape
RULE 27: We choose a fair pick that’s most
stable.

Fair Pick: a combination
of shape, color, light, etc.
Changing any one factor
can change perception of
an image.
o Choosing the fair pick
that changes image
least reduces number
of possible
interpretations and
makes deciphering
images less
ambiguous.
What Anchoring Rules are used?

RULE 28: Determine the highest
luminescence in the visual field as white,
fluorescent or self-luminous.
o We tend not to Construct BLACK, but rather
simply process it as lacking color.
COLOR

Color Aperture Displays: show all of the colors that can be
made, including ones we don’t generally see in the real world.

Color Terms:
o HUE: color like red, green, blue, etc
o S-a-t-u-r-a-t-i-o-n: purity of Hue; no black or grays
o Brightness: visibility goes from barely there to dazzling

Photometer’s are more sensitive than humans re: color
apertures. We see vague color BOUNDARIES, where it sees
ontinuous change
o But here too, like us, photometers “CONSTRUCT” light
properties, not merely report upon them.
o Light has no properties unto itself until an Observer looks at it!
c
Color Solids
Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic
Theory
Color Blindness

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
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Provides further evidence that we C-O-N-S-T-R-U-C-T color, not merely
report it.
Defective gene coding for chemicals in cones creates inability to
distinguish Red from Green
Since these genes are on X-chromosome, if men carry a defective one
their prognosis is not so good. Since women have two sets of Xchromosomes, they are likely to still possess one “good” set.
Further proof we construct color, rather than merely report on it as it
actually ‘is’.
This relates to Supervenience, in which a change in material biology
creates a change in phenomenal perception.

Implies a physicalist perspective, but how does it relate to the IDEALIST
perspective?

What are some implications for our collective reality if we can materially
modify the functioning of our brains?

How would our world phenomenally “appear” on the macrophysical
level?
Defective Genes

Protanopia: lacking
L-pigment
– Serine & Alanine
versions of Lpigment

Deutranopia:
lacking M-pigment

Tritanopia: lacking
S-pigment
Opponent Process Theory

Opponent Color Scales
– Red vs. Green and Blue vs. Yellow
– Combinations of these create all of our color
perceptions
– It is still unknown why color opponency is responsible
for our color senses
– Why not green vs. blue, and yellow vs. red?
– If light has no properties until an observer constructs it,
why do these rules apply?

Approximate Color Constancy: colors change slightly
when different light shines on them, but then your eyes
adjust and the colors return to their previous color

Linear Models: linear calculations of color changes under
different lighting regiments.
– Possibility of creating something that hardly changes
under different lights.

Color Transparencies
– Rule of Generic Views at work
– Obscuring T-junctions with circles impairs transparency
and creates a non-generic view
– Hearing analogy: When listening to a tone that gets
interrupted by a hiss, if there is a pause between the
two sounds, they don’t appear to overlap.
Constructing the Square
Stereo Vision Revisited

Transparencies appear as 3D.

Slight changes to the edges of transparencies
produce very different 3D images. (Harkening to
supervenience again!)
Binocular Disparity
May we ALL come to SEE the
“apparent” …for what
IT TRULY IS.
Food For Thought: