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"Why do we see in color? Why do our eyes face forward? Why do we see illusions? Why are letters shaped the way they are?"
Intriguing riddles such as these often necessitate interdisciplinary brilliance to solve. Theoretical biologist and neuroscientist Mark Changizi has been stockpiling research in these areas for much of the last decade, fixated on some of the fascinating but imperfectly understood precincts of human perception. Not content with asking how our central nervous system functions, Changizi is determined to provide explanations of why its architecture and inter-operative functionality exist as they do. The Vision Revolution, should it withstand the scrutiny of peer review, is a groundbreaking work in vision science that brings forward original research into the evolution of the human visual system.
In the book he pivots between four core ideas, each of which are given mystical titles:
1) Color telepathy: "Color vision was selected for so that we might see emotions and other states on the skin."
2) X-ray vision: "Forward-facing eyes were selected for so we could use X-ray vision in cluttered environments."
3) Future-seeing: "Optical illusions are a consequence of the future-seeing power selected for so that we might perceive the present."
4) Spirit-reading: "Letters culturally evolved into shapes that look like things in nature because nature is what we have evolved to be good at seeing."
Each entrée of this technical collation is truly mind-altering, and it is a joy to tag along as Mark architects the empirical struts of his developmental theses. Let's dive right in.Read more ›
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If you were to do nothing more than glance at the chapter names, you would consider this book to be a collection of occult dung powder. Old, stale, and reworked so often that it is dried up. The chapter titles are:
*) Color telepathy *) X-ray vision *) Future-seeing *) Spirit-reading
However, that first impression would be a significantly wrong impression, Changizi has written such a fascinating and scientifically sound book that it remains interesting, even when you disagree with his conclusions. The chapter "Color telepathy" describes how humans are often able to "read" a person's thoughts and diagnose the state of their health by interpreting slight changes in skin color due to the level of oxygenation in the blood. In this area, his reasoning is sound and Changizi points out that colorblind doctors have been demonstrated to be at a significant disadvantage when attempting to visually diagnose a patient. Where his reasoning breaks down is when he argues that Homo sapiens evolutionarily acquired color vision so that they could use changes in skin color to learn what other people were thinking. In my opinion, this position is untenable. In general, predators try to blend into the environment as much as possible so that they can get as close as possible before they move in for the kill. Having an acute sense of color vision would allow the relatively defenseless human to spot the stalking predator much earlier than if they were colorblind. Although Changizi's position has some merit, the value of color vision in spotting predators is a much stronger argument for it being evolutionarily selected. The chapter "X-ray vision" has nothing like the powers of Superman to see through solid objects, the point is quite different.Read more ›
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lots of important new ideas here make this definitely worth reading. however, it doesn't "overturn everything" we know about human perception and this author along with a lot of other "new" psychologists would benefit from a more thorough study of what has been known and remains true. in this case i will mention perception of the neutral density spectrum (black-grey-white) as particularly uninformed, though even here there are contributions - just not the revolutionary and "overturning" sort the author hypes. believe it or not, in the early 20th century, by the time i graduated in 1968, perception psychology had already solved a great many mysteries and those solutions stand up quite well because the studies were well and elegantly designed and done. wolfgang koehler and hans wallach, for instance, are among the gestalt psychologists who showed us many things and whose writings are just as interesting as "the latest" stuff.
i think the section on illusions and perception of the future alone is probably reason enough to buy this book.
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Having read all the five star feedbacks I enthusiastically bought this book only to be sourly disappointed. The standard approach of the Author is to propose an idea (usually in "I think..." form) and then to search for facts and evidence to support it. But what about evidence that contradicts his theories? They are conveniently swept under the rug. Now I do concede that the book's first chapter about why our cones have developed sensitivity to specific frequencies are validly supported, and that there could be truth in this, but what ruins the Author's credibility are endless cases where the facts are clearly wrong or badly supported.
One of these "threads" where things get pretty bad is when the Author tries to convince the reader that mankind has lost it's fur for "color signaling". To me, his line of reasoning sounds absurd (p.28): "Skin that is bare -not skin of any particular color- is what we expect to see in primates with color vision, and that's what we find. Bare skin, then, is for color signaling". This is an example of "cargo cult science" (google it): by seeing two thing happen together, it is deduced that one is cause of the other. Then again about why we humans still retain some facial hair: "...eyebrows, probably useful for exaggerating facial expressions...". Eyebrows are there so that sweat and rain don't go into the eyes! Later (p.34) the Author again argues that bare skin is for color signaling: "...Once an animal is bare-skinned and begins to color signal, natural selection could cause specific injured spots to become more visible". That natural selection would change the chemistry of wounds to make them more visible is utterly contorted and unproved, but it gets worse.Read more ›
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This item: The Vision Revolution: How the Latest Research Overturns Everything We Thought We Knew About Human Vision
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