Evidence from Lightness and Color

Abstract

What, then, is the evidence that sensory systems link stimulus inputs to useful responses empirically as a means of generating successful behavior in a physical world that the senses cannot measure? This chapter focuses on evidence derived from studies of lightness and color in vision, the brain system that has been most extensively studied in this regard. The argument here, and in the following chapters that consider other perceptual qualities and systems, is that evolved circuitry based on accumulated experience with frequency of occurrence of biologically useful stimuli accomplishes this feat. This strategy, called empirical ranking theory, explains why the qualities we perceive are always at odds with physical measurements.