The Vision Revolution: How the Latest Research Overturns Everything We Thought We Knew About Human Vision

The Vision Revolution: How the Latest Research Overturns Everything We Thought We Knew About Human Vision

By: Mark Changizi  

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Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5

All of these beliefs are false, as groundbreaking research by evolutionary scientist and neurobiologist Mark Changizi now reveals. Changizi's research centers on the "why" of human vision. Why do we have binocular vision? Why do we see in color the way we do? Why do optical illusions work? And why are we able to absorb information by reading―a very new invention from an evolutionary perspective―more readily than by hearing, which we've evolved to do over hundreds of thousands of years?

The Vision Revolution answers these questions, and proves, with the detailed results of Changizi's fieldwork, that the answers are very different than traditionally believed. A radically new perspective of human vision is now emerging. The Vision Revolution is upon us.

Publisher: BenBella Books

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Interesting Perspectives on the Eye-Brain System - How many people take the time to ponder how we humans, and our animal confreres, perceive the world through vision? It seems that theoretical neurobiologists do. Why do we see in colour? Why are our eyes in front of our heads while some animals have theirs on the sides? Why are we tricked into seeing optical illusions in certain pictures? These are some of the questions which the author tries to answer in this fascinating book. His views are certainly new compared to what many of us may have been taught in school. Yet, once the author has presented his arguments and his evidence, one must admit that, in each case, he has a point. Each of the book's four chapters begins with the basics of its subject matter and progresses from there. Arguments are eventually presented as well as supporting data. Finally, detailed theoretical views are formulated which, for me anyway, required more head-scratching.

The writing style is certainly quite authoritative, friendly, generally clear and even rather lively. Regarding accessibility, as noted above, I found the chapters quite readable but becoming progressively more complex near the ends. Overall, I learned quite a bit from this book. I was also quite surprised at much of the information presented. I think that this book can be of much value to anyone with an interest in how the eye-brain system works and why it works the way it does.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Exploring, interpreting eye-brain synergy - Human brain has picked, in terms of senses, vision to be its favorite - if you consider the number of neurons connected. Perhaps it is the complexity of image processing that requires such tight coupling or perhaps the evolutionary trends on this lane determined that vision could be the deciding factor in spotting opportunities and danger, getting killed or staying alive. Or perhaps both evolutionary and computational needs converge at the eye-brain integration.

I wish the font of the book (printed edition) was better and was more evenly spaced -which would have made for a better reading experience. Also, the author would have reached a lot more mainstream audience by making the style more conversational - as he does in some sections later in the book (see "My Supercomputer Is Running Slowly" in the "Future-Seeing" chapter) but not early enough. Such changes would have catapulted this book to the "Freakanomics - Outliers" level. These, though, are relatively minor points when you think about the expanse of topics presented in this book and great care given to the color pictures, photographs, charts and other artifacts.

This book is both interesting and educational and provides an optimistic note in the realm of vision research, especially for anyone frustrated with funding cutbacks in such research areas. There are many practical applications that can be drawn from this book and the work highlighted and recommend this book highly.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Magic Eye, Indeed!! - Changizi has a light & amusing style, so that one might at first, undervalue him. But noting the citations & reference, plus doing the exercises he mentions, show one that the eye-ball is even more magical than one has ever imagined.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
From Evolution to Abstraction - Mark Changizi's application of evolutionary biology to the analysis of vision is brilliant and provocative. As an art historian, I am particularly interested in the chapters on "Color Telepathy" and "Spirit-Reading." Of course, color is a central concern in art history, but I was also fascinated by Changizi's argument for the centrality of flesh color to our perception of color in general. It recalls a passage from the Romantic critic William Hazlitt's essay, "On Gusto," about the variegated flesh color in Titian. Analyzing flesh color in real life, Changizi points out how much it changes from moment to moment, depending on blood, oxygenation level, and emotional states, notwithstanding the fixed amount of pigmentation.

His discussion of contours and combinations of contours as models for written signs is equally fascinating. Here, he sets off speculation about two issues. Is the basic repertory of signs for contours related in any way to the neural wiring of the retina and the brain, which preferentially recognizes certain shapes and alignments: horizontals, verticals, diagonals (as per the pioneering research of David Hubell & Margaret Livingstone)? And could this "machine code," so to speak, of vision be related to abstract forms in art? This last question is of particular interest in relation to Cubism and abstract painting. Perhaps their basic vocabulary is in some way related to the "natural" structure of vision.

A book that constantly provokes new reflections, not just about vision, but about life and culture.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Changizi is a genius, but this book is not for everyone - Changizi is undoubtedly a genius, and he writes well, being particularly adept at analogies. Still, Changizi is detailing all the evidence for his conclusions, and some of it is not very interesting.

The most unintuitive conclusion is that our eyes have evolved to detect small variations in flesh color. Yet Changizi is very convincing, particularly because of Figures 14 and 15, which show that 2 of our color cones detect almost the same wavelengths, specifically the wavelengths needed for detecting small variations in flesh color! It is not clear whether this adaptation is primarily for detecting illness, or a person's true emotion, but I would have to go with the latter, and therefore this finding supports those evolutionists who emphasize social interaction as a primary driver in human evolution.

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