Visual recognition involves storing and retrieving memories. Neural
activity, triggered by the eye, forms an image in the brain’s memory system
that constitutes an internal representation of the viewed object. When an
object is encountered again, it is matched with its internal representation and
thereby recognized. Controversy surrounds the question of whether recognition
is a parallel, one-step process or a serial, step-by-step one. Psychologists of
the Gestalt school maintain that objects are recognized as wholes in a parallel
procedure: the internal representation is matched with the retinal image in a single operation. Other psychologists have proposed that internal
representation features are matched serially with an object’s features.
Although some experiments show that, as an object becomes familiar, its
internal representation becomes more holistic and the recognition process
correspondingly more parallel, the weight of evidence seems to support the
serial hypothesis, at least for objects that are not notably simple and
familiar.
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