Xref: utzoo comp.ai:9572 comp.ai.philosophy:1077
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.ai.philosophy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watserv1!rick
From: rick@watnow.waterloo.edu (Rick Salay)
Subject: Re: Visual stability and perception/cognition
In-Reply-To: yking@cs.ubc.ca's message of Tue, 25 Jun 91 22: 35:59 GMT
Message-ID: <RICK.91Jun27204917@watnow.waterloo.edu>
Sender: news@watserv1.waterloo.edu
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
References: <1991Jun25.223559.26962@cs.ubc.ca>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1991 01:49:17 GMT
Lines: 19

This subject of perceptual, conceptual, etc. stability is very
interesting. A while ago I was thinking that the degree of apparent
stability of our world (ie. the world we perceive) is a function of
the amount of information we receive from it - and this is in turn
conditioned by our expectations. For instance, if we are in a very
familiar situation, most of the sensory data we receive is 'not
surprising' - ie. it carries no information because it was already
passively expected by our cognitive/perceptual system. In this case,
things seem banal and highly stable. Unexpected events 'shatter' this
stability and force our attention upon them so that we may 'account'
for them and hence regain the stability. When many unexpected events
occur, the situation becomes chaotic - we are bombarded with too much
information and the world seems highly unstable and intractable. Note
that by 'stability' I don't mean that nothing is happening - just that
nothing surprising is happening. I think that the issue of consonance
and dissonance in music (or other art) is analogous.

					Rick Salay