Ulric Neisser Quotes
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Paying attention is not just analyzing carefully; rather, it is a constructive act... What we build has only the dimensions we have given it.
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If we allow several figures to appear at once, the number of possible input configurations is so very large that a wholly parallel mechanism, giving a different output for each of them, is inconceivable.
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It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As a hypothesis about localization of function, the statement is not quite right – the brain and not the eye is surely the most important organ involved ... Whether it is beautiful or ugly or just conveniently at hand, the world of experience is produced by the man who experiences it.
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Cognitive processes surely exist, so it can hardly be unscientific to study them.
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To deal with the whole visual input at once, and make discriminations based on any combination of features in the field, would require too large a brain, or too much "previous experience" to be plausible.
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Most of our oldest memories are the product of repeated rehearsal and reconstruction.
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To cope with this difficulty of limited capacity, even a mechanical recognition system must have some way to select portions of the incoming information for detailed analysis.
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Attention is not a mysterious concentration of psychic energy; it is simply an allotment of analyzing mechanisms to a limited region of the field. To pay attention to a figure is to make certain analyses of, or certain constructions in, the corresponding part of the icon.