Seeing Is Believing--In What We Are Seeing

Here's part of what MindHacks says about a new book about the psychology of vision that goes to the top of my must-read list.

Almost no background knowledge is assumed yet the book takes the reader into the intricacies of the psychology of vision. The triumph of the book is that it gives a flavour of how research proceeds while also managing to provide an intuition-shaking overview of the whole topic. I will never think about seeing in the same way again.

The book is: Goodale, M. & Milner, D. (2004). Sight Unseen: An Exploration of Conscious and Unconscious Vision. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

I think that of all the senses, vision is the one that most compellingly convinces us that we truly are capable of accurately perceiving reality, or what is "out there." Yet science tells us in many different ways that such is not the case. Anyone who has ever worked as a police officer or trial lawyer will readily tell you that no two people ever truly "see" the same event, even though they may have each been watching it unfold, side by side. Many other factors (other than what might be called the components of the event itself: who was involved, what they were wearing, what they did and said, and in what order) enter into the mental imagery and narratives that are composed within our minds/brains as a result of our visual obervations....