Summary

This collection brings together the major papers in the field of Perception. This is a rich area, both in terms of history, and the breadth of the subject, which covers all five sensory modalities. The articles included range from recent influential reviews to introduce an area and historical and classic material to leading-edge recent work which may challenge accepted practice. The aim is to provide a feel for the dynamism of the field - this is often illustrated by major debates between various positions.

Perception begins with an introduction by the editors. Tom Troscianko has been Executive Editor of the journal Perception for twenty years, and has published widely in the area. Alastair Smith is a researcher who has published influential papers and whose interests lie at the intersection of several of the sets making up this work. The introductory chapter serves as a navigation guide through the rest of the collection, and summarises the major debates and advances from what was, initially, a topic within philosophy through to the present neuroscientific basis of the field.

Volumes One and Two focuses on visual perception as vision is the most widely-researched modality, and these volumes include classic readings on the topic, from the perception of form, colour, and motion, to the grouping of these elements to facilitate the recognition. Volume Three covers hearing and touch; papers on hearing cover basic perception of acoustic signals, typified by the fundamental research carried out by Bell Laboratories, and continue this through to work by Bregman that describes auditory stream segregation and auditory illusions. Touch is represented by research on low-level perception of physical stimuli through to the feeling of pain. Volume Four looks the chemical senses of taste and smell - two closely-related systems. Furthermore, this volume illustrates how theorists have characterised the integration of perceptual systems, and how they interact in the multi-modal world.

This major work will prove to be a valuable resource for scholars in Psychology and related disciplines who wish to access this body of knowledge.