Like many of our cognitive abilities, it is easy to take vision for granted. On a daily basis, vision seems rather simple:  various objects, people, landscapes present themselves before us; and, if our eyes are open and function well, we are bestowed with a visual experience of these things. We then act on this experience in all the ways the world affords. In reality, things are much more complex than this naive experience might lead us to think. For instance, visual perception isn’t passive in the way just described. Rather, our sense organs and brain are constantly performing an enormous amount of intricate operations. Importantly, most of these operations are not directly controllable in any significant way. So, what is the nature of this impressive and somewhat autonomous machinery? Where does it start? What must our eyes do in order for us to perceive the world? How is what they do influenced by other psychological and biological factors? How is it even possible to study all of this? Today’s guest is the person to answer, if not all these questions, at least some of them.

She is Thérèse Collins. She is a professor of cognitive psychology at Université de Paris-Cité, where she is also the director of the vision team at the Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition center. She obtained her PhD in Psychology from Université Paris Descartes, post-which she did a post-doc in Hamburg, Germany. Broadly, her research group studies visual perception, eye movements and object representations.

Links to Visual Illusions recommended by Thérèse: https://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html ;  http://illusionoftheyear.com/

Credits:

Interview: Tanay Katiyar and Jay Richardson

Artwork: Ella Bergru

Editing: Jay Richardson

Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel

Communication: Tanay Katiyar