Zavagno Daniele, Daneyko Olga, Actis-Grosso Rossana
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca Milano, Italy.
Department of Neuroscience, University of Parma Parma, Italy.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2015 Apr 13;9:190. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00190. eCollection 2015.
Although a visual illusion is often viewed as an amusing trick, for the vision scientist it is a question that demands an answer, which leads to even more questioning. All researchers hold their own chain of questions, the links of which depend on the very theory they adhere to. Perceptual theories are devoted to answering questions concerning sensation and perception, but in doing so they shape concepts such as reality and representation, which necessarily affect the concept of illusion. Here we consider the macroscopic aspects of such concepts in vision sciences from three classic viewpoints-Ecological, Cognitive, Gestalt approaches-as we see this a starting point to understand in which terms illusions can become a tool in the hand of the neuroscientist. In fact, illusions can be effective tools in studying the brain in reference to perception and also to cognition in a much broader sense. A theoretical debate is, however, mandatory, in particular with regards to concepts such as veridicality and representation. Whether a perceptual outcome is considered as veridical or illusory (and, consequently, whether a class of phenomena should be classified as perceptual illusions or not) depends on the meaning of such concepts.
尽管视觉错觉通常被视为一种有趣的把戏，但对视知觉科学家来说，这是一个需要回答的问题，而这又会引发更多的疑问。所有研究者都有自己的一系列问题，这些问题的环节取决于他们所坚持的理论。知觉理论致力于回答有关感觉和知觉的问题，但在这样做的过程中，它们塑造了诸如现实和表征等概念，而这些概念必然会影响错觉的概念。在这里，我们从生态、认知、格式塔这三种经典视角来探讨视觉科学中这些概念的宏观方面，因为我们认为这是理解错觉如何能成为神经科学家手中工具的一个起点。事实上，错觉在研究大脑的知觉以及更广泛意义上的认知方面，可以成为有效的工具。然而，一场理论辩论是必不可少的，特别是关于诸如真实性和表征等概念。一个知觉结果被认为是真实的还是虚幻的（因此，一类现象是否应该被归类为知觉错觉）取决于这些概念的含义。
