Multiple approaches to perception

All of these approaches have a common thread: Our top-down past experiences determines our perception (Perception combines bottom-up and top-down processing).

1. Helmholtz's theory of unconscious inference
2. The Gestalt principles of organization
3. Perception is influenced by regularities in the environment
4. Bayesian inference

There are nuances around how the Gestalt psychologist argued that there's a more intrinsic law to this, but modern psychologists that some of the laws outlined by Gestalt can also be seen top-down.

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Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology (p. 69).

Now that we have described four conceptions of object perception (Helmholtz's unconscious inference, the Gestalt laws of organisation, regularities in the environment and Bayesian inference), you might ask yourself whether these ideas are based on one similar principle or whether perhaps one of them is different from the other three?

Backlinks

• Helmholtz's theory of unconscious inference
  • This is one of the Multiple approaches to perception listed in Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology. I got confused because it uses the word inference, see What is the difference in between perception, inference, judgement?.
• What's the most psychologically effective way to organise code?
  • See Multiple approaches to perception