Perception and Illusion Historical Perspectives
The understanding of perception is central to our knowledge of the mind. Yet paradoxically, this understanding was born of centuries of fascination with errors of human perception. Perception and Illusion: Historical Perspectives elegantly retraces this s
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Library of the History of
Psychological Theories Series Editor: Robert W. Rieber, City University of New York, New York, NY
PERCEPTION AND ILLUSION Historical Perspectives Nicholas J. Wade
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Perception and Illusion Historical Perspectives Nicholas J. Wade University of Dundee Dundee, United Kingdom
Springer
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0-387-22723-7 0-387-22722-9
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To Daisy and Sam
Preface Our contact with the world is through perception, and therefore the study of the process is of obvious importance and significance. For much of its long history, the study of perception has been confined to naturalistic observation. Nonetheless, the phenomena considered worthy of note have not been those that nurture our survival—the veridical features of perception—but the oddities or departures from the common and commonplace accuracies of perception. With the move from the natural world to the laboratory the oddities of perception multiplied, and they received ever more detailed scrutiny. My general intention is to examine the interpretations of the perceptual process and its errors throughout history. The emphasis on errors of perception might appear to be a narrow approach, but in fact it encompasses virtually all perceptual research from the ancients until the present. The constancies of perception have been taken for granted whereas departures from constancies (errors or illusions) have fostered fascination. Philosophical approaches to perception have been based on observations, and it is the latter that are at the forefront of the present book. The methods of recording observations have become more refined, but this has not resulted in an increased concern with veridicality. Rather, the range of illusions that are studied has exploded. Illusions in this context refer to perceptual departures from veridicality, rather than the constrained variety of geometrical-optical illusions that sprang forth in the late nineteenth century. Any study of illusions is predicated on an assumption of a standard from which the errors can be assessed. The standards themselves have changed over the centuries, largely as a consequence of developments in the physical and life sciences. Accordingly, the nature of perceptual error will itself be examined before surveying the seen. Thus, my intention is to treat perception, and pr
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