Chapter Overview

This chapter lays out the framework for the analysis of perception, including the philosophical assumptions to be made. We have mentioned some of the practical and theoretical reasons for wanting to know more about perception. And we have outlined three distinct though complementary ways of understanding perception: the psychological, biological and theoretical approaches. Now that this general framework is in place, the next chapter will begin to fill in the pieces, starting with some fundamentals about the organ we use for seeing. Although the book also covers hearing, taste, smell, and touch, it devotes somewhat more coverage to seeing. More is known about vision than about the other senses, and we believe vision represents the richest source of environmental information. This preeminence of vision is mirrored in the proportion of the human brain that is devoted to vision.