Dear Cuiping Wang

Perceptual constancy is a prime feature of sentient life in all its manifold complexity. Please consider if you will three instances of perceptual constancy. Firstly there is the constant ‘whiteness” of a piece of paper under a remarkable range of viewing conditions. Secondly the ability to comprehend the visual complexity of a busy railway station, and thirdly the ability to strike a fast moving tennis ball. In each case the total input of detailed spatial and temporal sensory information is way beyond instant detailed analysis and an alternative strategy is required.

I regard the strategy in question as a “high speed pattern recognition process”, based on learned examples from birth. The new-born infant thus first gains spatial knowledge by reaching toward and touching its mother and it gains temporal-sense input from feeding times. Later, childhood play brings ever more complex stored patterns of experience, and learned life skills in general may clearly be explained on the same basis. The phenomenon of perceptual constancy is the key factor that enables recognition, without which, the pattern recognition process (and indeed sentient life itself) becomes impossible.

Thanks!

Following.