Illustrations from: Basic Vision: An Introduction to Visual Perception, by Robert Snowden, Peter Thompson & Tom Troscianko, Oxford University Press (2006)

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The Physical World Our senses can only give us a rough idea of specific aspects of the visual world
Short-sighted
Dyslexia A dyslexic man comes to a Toga party dressed as a goat
Lazy Cartoonist The human brain can turn two dots with a line below them into a human face with expressions
Missing the Big Things
The Grandmother Cell A hypothetical neuron that is associated directly with a complex and specific concept or object
One-Ton Brain Selective pressures can only drive our brains to a certain size before other factors in the balance outweigh the advantages
Size After Effect
Retinal vs Real Size "Those people look like ants from up here": An ant close up can be the same size on your retina as a person far away
Percy Pond Creature The selective advantages of the evolution of new photoreceptors in tetrapods - the ability to distinguish objects by reflected spectrum in addition to illumination
Raging Bull in Blue-Yellow Bulls are colour-blind and can only see in blue-yellow channels, so can't distinguish the matador's red cloth (muleta) from other red or green objects
Helmholtz vs Sherrington
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