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Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing

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Since the publication of the first edition in 1966, Eye and Brain has established itself worldwide as an essential introduction to the basic phenomena of visual perception. Richard Gregory offers clear explanations of how we see brightness, movement, color, and objects, and he explores the phenomena of visual illusions to establish principles about how perception normally works and why it sometimes fails.

Illusion continues to be a major theme in the book, which provides a comprehensive classification system. There are also sections on what babies see and how they learn to see, on motion perception, the relationship between vision and consciousness, and on the impact of new brain imaging techniques.

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

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Richard L. Gregory

19 books15 followers

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5 stars
76 (34%)
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84 (37%)
3 stars
45 (20%)
2 stars
14 (6%)
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3 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
Profile Image for Oktawian Chojnacki.
80 reviews9 followers
July 31, 2018
Fascinating tour on how and where we see.

I know how hidden layers of synthetic neural networks can specialize in „vision” on multiple level of abstraction the biggest question now is how is the learning implemented in our brains.

This book stated many more questions than it answered but that’s fine.
Profile Image for aqeel.
53 reviews3 followers
April 13, 2017
كتاب رائع جداً يتكلم عن بنُية العين ثم كيفية النظر والإبصار ليصل إلى كيفية تحليل الدماغ والعقل لهذه المعلومات جُل الكتاب يتحدث عن الوهم، اسبابه ومصدره.
Amazing book speak about eyes and sight and how brain and mind analyze those information. A great deal of the book speak about illusion what cause them, there source.
Profile Image for Jaeyde.
64 reviews1 follower
November 23, 2008
Comes with nifty 3d glasses!

A good foundation in visual perception.
Profile Image for Joe.
5 reviews
March 1, 2025
I learned from this book that the human eye has no receptors for the color "yellow". The sensation of yellow is created by perceiving a combination of ref and green. Cool!

Also, movies are called "flicks" (hence Netflix) because in the olden days analog film---which was displayed at 24 frames per second---would appear to FLICKER in the eyes of the viewer because we'd be able to perceive the individual frames flying past, given that our threshold is in the 30's of frames per second.

Also, there is a blind spot in our eyeballs that cannot receive images because the nerve endings connecting our retinas to our brain actually bundle themselves inside the eyeball before exiting through the back. As the book puts it, our eyeballs are constructed inside-out. As a result, we are always "looking" through our own dense web of retinal nerve connections to perceive the world.

"Floaters" are particles of material suspended in our aqueous humor, the pocket of liquid that sits behind our cornea, isolating the cornea from any blood transport and nourishing the cornea directly with the nutrients present in the liquid.

Humans' eyesight worsens as they age---specifically, a reduced ability to adjust the lens to focus on objects at different distances---because the lens is another component of the eyeball that is isolated from the blood supply. Since the lens does not get any nourishment from the blood supply in our lifetimes, it essentially decays slowly as we age, crystallizing and becoming more rigid and less able to be bent by the muscles that surround it.
Profile Image for Ciyang Wang.
16 reviews
April 1, 2021
A very informative and entertaining book. A lot of interesting history pieces behind the scientific discovery about sight. I skimmed through it the first time, and need to re-read it in order to fully understand many of the complicated scientific experiments included in the book.

The thing I love the most about this book is that is creates a world of curiosity, where we shall ask question naively like little kids.
Profile Image for KMT.
48 reviews1 follower
December 12, 2020
An introduction to the science of seeing which I thought was really accessible for a layman like me. I found the first 8 chapters really interesting, but was left a bit confused by the last 3 ones about art, illusions, and speculations which where either too abstract or too complex for me.
Profile Image for J.D. Gormaz.
126 reviews2 followers
March 26, 2023
This is a classic must-read for lovers of the visual arts and writers. He enlightens the readers in the mind-boggling psychological biases underlying how we see the world. He explains in terms of scientific dissemination why we literally see only what we are ready to see.
1,202 reviews2 followers
December 4, 2017
B. I read this book many years ago, in college, and seeing it cited in On The Move, decided to reread.
It is about the physiology of the eye and the psychology of visual perception.
1 review
February 7, 2018
Clearly written although a bit outdated introduction to psychology and biology of seeing.
40 reviews1 follower
January 19, 2020
This was a frustrating read for me. Again and again i felt like the descriptions and explanations were not sufficiently detailed/clear as to yield understanding. But the subject is very interesting.
Profile Image for Richard Banks.
Author 8 books8 followers
August 7, 2015
Very engaging with informative text and ample illustrations. The book is well-written in "understandable English". It answers many of the question involving the mystery and magic of human vision by explaining how we see what we see. I particularly liked the inference of psychology and its relationship to art. This book is a good read that any one interested in art or psychology would enjoy.The only, small downside is what experience a person might bring to the subject of vision. Vision, is afterall, one of our most complicated human senses that most people take for granted. After reading this book, that will all change!
Profile Image for Peter.
6 reviews3 followers
January 6, 2008
um, i'm reading it for school, but it's a good collection of eye/brain phenomena and helps you to think about perception and the schema through which you perceive.
Profile Image for Jamey.
Author 8 books89 followers
March 21, 2008
Awesome book. I don't think I read the whole thing.
Profile Image for James.
Author 4 books2 followers
March 17, 2009
I discovered this fascinating book by reading the autobiography "Roman by Polanski" in my eagerness to learn about the topic and how it associated to images projected through film and storytelling.
Profile Image for Jeremy.
28 reviews2 followers
May 27, 2009
A fun little read but quite out of date. However, it does provide some good anatomical primer.
15 reviews
March 23, 2016
Sehr interessante und lehrreiche Lektüre. Auch für Künstler und Kunsthistoriker empfehlenswert.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews

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