Information, Sensation, and Perception - Hardcover

Norwich, Kenneth H.

9780125218900: Information, Sensation, and Perception

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0125218907 ISBN 13: 9780125218900

Publisher: Academic Press, 1993

Based on two decades of thought and research, this book presents a new fundamental equation termed the "entropy theory of perception" and proceeds to show how nearly all of the empirical laws of sensory science discovered in the last 130 years can be derived from this equation. Through this, the book offers a new theoretical approach to understanding the process of perception, and a new mathematical technique for analyzing sensory data. The book also discusses both machine and human perception, but from the perspective of mathematics/physics rather than from that of a neural network model.

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Review:

"The 18th-century philosopher George Berkeley argued that knowledge of the external world is acquired indirectly, on the basis of information provided by the senses, and is therefore necessarily uncertain. In Information, Sensation, and Perception, Kenneth Norwich skillfully translates Berkeley's phenomenology into a mathematical theory that considers the process of perception in terms of the nervous systems attempt to maximize the verisimilitude of the sensory picture that it receives....this book affords us clear insight into the style of reasoning required to see the empirical laws of perception as the natural outcomes of a common, unified theory."
--JOHN C. BAIRD, Department of Psychology, Dartmouth College, in SCIENCE
"This excellent work should be read by all scholars seeking insight into the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of psychophysics."
--JOHN C. BAIRD, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
"The elegance and the comprehensiveness of Norwich's work cannot, or at least should not, be dismissed. The logic and analyses are thorough and compelling. Norwich makes a strong case for the view that laws and theory of physics can be deployed so as to characterize many of psychophysical properties of sensory/perceptual systems."
--LAWRENCE E. MARKS, Pierce Laboratory, Yale University

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