PSYC Call for Commentators

[S.Harnad]

                Latimer/Stevens: PART-WHOLE PERCEPTION
 
    The target article whose abstract follows below has just appeared
    in PSYCOLOQUY, a refereed journal of Open Peer Commentary sponsored
    by the American Psychological Association. Qualified professional
    biobehavioral, neural or cognitive scientists are hereby invited to
    submit Open Peer Commentary on this article. Please write for
    Instructions if you are not familiar with PSYCOLOQUY format and
    acceptance criteria (all submissions are refereed).

The article can be read or retrieved at this URL:

ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/Psycoloquy/1997.volume.8/psyc.97.8.13.part-whole-perception.1.latimer

For submitting articles and commentaries and for information:
EMAIL: psyc at pucc.princteton.edu
URL:   http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/psycoloquy/

        AUTHORS' RATIONALE FOR SOLICITING COMMENTARY:

    The topic of whole/part perception has a long history of controversy,
    and its ramifications still pervade research on perception and
    pattern recognition in psychology, artificial intelligence and
    cognitive science where controversies such as "global versus local
    precedence" and "holistic versus analytic processing" are still very
    much alive. We argue that, whereas the vast majority of studies on
    whole/part perception have been empirical, the major and largely
    unaddressed problems in the area are conceptual and concern how the
    terms "whole" and "part" are defined and how wholes and parts are
    related in each particular experimental context. Without some general
    theory of wholes and parts and their relations and some consensus on
    nomenclature, we feel that pseudo-controversies will persist.
 
    One possible principle of unification and clarification is a formal
    analysis of the whole/part relationship by Nicholas Rescher and Paul
    Oppenheim (1955). We outline this formalism and demonstrate that not
    only does it have important implications for how we conceptualize
    wholes and parts and their relations, but it also has far reaching
    implications for the conduct of experiments on a wide range of
    perceptual phenomena.
 
    We challenge the well established view that whole/part perception is
    essentially an empirical problem and that its solution will be found
    in experimental investigations. We argue that there are many purely
    conceptual issues that require attention prior to empirical work.
 
    We question the logic of global-precedence theory and any
    interpretation of experimental data in terms of the extraction of
    global attributes without prior analysis of local elements. We also
    challenge theorists to provide precise, testable theories and working
    mechanisms that embody the whole/part processing they purport to
    explain.
 
    Although it deals mainly with vision and audition, our approach can be
    generalized to include tactile perception. Finally, we argue that
    apparently disparate theories, controversies, results and phenomena
    can all be considered under the three main conditions for wholes and
    parts proposed by Rescher and Oppenheim.
 
    Commentary and counterargument are sought on all these issues. In
    particular, we would like to hear arguments to the effect that wholes
    and parts (perceptual or otherwise) can exist in some absolute sense,
    and we would like to learn of machines, devices, programs or systems
    that are capable of extracting holistic properties without prior
    analysis of parts.
 
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psycoloquy.97.8.13.part-whole-perception.1.latimer      Wed 17 Dec 1997
ISSN 1055-0143                (39 paragraphs, 68 references, 923 lines)
PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA)
                Copyright 1997 Latimer & Stevens

                SOME REMARKS ON WHOLES, PARTS AND THEIR PERCEPTION

                Cyril Latimer
                Department of Psychology
                University of Sydney
                NSW 2006, Australia
                email: cyril at psych.su.oz.au
                URL: http://www.psych.su.oz.au/staff/cyril/
        
                Catherine Stevens
                Department of Psychology/FASS
                University of Western Sydney, Macarthur
                PO Box 555, Campbelltown, NSW 2560, Australia
                email: kj.stevens at uws.edu.au
                URL: http://psy.uq.edu.au/CogPsych/Noetica/

    ABSTRACT: We emphasize the relativity of wholes and parts in
    whole/part perception, and suggest that consideration must be given
    to what the terms "whole" and "part" mean, and how they relate in a
    particular context. A formal analysis of the part/whole
    relationship by Rescher & Oppenheim, (1955) is shown to have a
    unifying and clarifying role in many controversial issues including
    illusions, emergence, local/global precedence, holistic/analytic
    processing, schema/feature theories and "smart mechanisms". The
    logic of direct extraction of holistic properties is questioned,
    and attention drawn to vagueness of reference to wholes and parts
    which can refer to phenomenal units, physiological structures or
    theoretical units of perceptual analysis.

    KEYWORDS: analytic versus holistic processing, emergence, feature
    gestalt, global versus local precedence part, whole