Visual perception
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

For another meaning of the word "see", see episcopal see.

Vision or seeing is one of the senses, consisting of the ability to detect light and interpret (see) it as the perception known as sight or naked eye vision. Something is invisible if within one's line of sight; yet, unseen.

There is disagreement as to whether or not this constitutes one, two or even three distinct senses. Some people make a distinction between "black and white" vision and the perception of colour, and others point out that rod vision uses different physical detectors on the retina from cone vision. Some argue that the perception of depth also constitutes a sense, but others argue that this is really cognition (that is, post-sensory) function derived from having stereoscopic vision (two eyes) and is not a sensory perception as such.

The eye is the light-sensitive organ that performs the first stages of vision. The eye's retina performs the first stages of visual perception processing, with the remaining stages of visual perception occurring in the optic nerve and the visual cortex of the brain.

See also:

• contrast
• phi phenomenon
• optical illusions
• color and color vision
• peripheral vision
• flicker fusion and the persistence of vision
• color blindness
• blindsight
• brightness and contrast
• binocular vision and depth perception
• consciousness and visual qualia
• optometry
• phosphenes
• pattern recognition and computer vision
• primary sensory areas
• neuroscience and cognitive science
• Visual perception in dreams
• optic flow

References

• Rudolph Arnheim (1954). Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. Berkeley: University of California Press.

The original article can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_perception.
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