Vision

Abstract To understand what goes on around us, we must perceive the surrounding layout in which things appear and events happen. Vision is the richest source of information about objects and events, and research on its nature and origins constitutes one of the oldest and most successful fields of developmental cognitive science. This chapter takes a historical approach to the research of scientists, from Rene Descartes to Hermann von Helmholtz, Eleanor J. Gibson, Richard Held, and David Marr, who turned philosophical questions concerning the nature and origins of visual perception of the surrounding layout into a vibrant area of science. Their research sheds light on what infants see and provides many of the methods and concepts that have allowed later investigators to probe what infants know.