Physiological Evidence for Two Visual Subsystems

Many studies, including some in this volume, describe two distinct types of higher functions in the visual system. One visual function is concerned primarily with evaluation using information about shape, color and pattern to identify or categorize objects. The other function is more involved with spatial considerations, making use of visual information to determine the position movements and spatial relationships among objects. The notion that the visual system performs two distinguishable types of higher functions is well established, and many pairs of terms have been applied in describing this dichotomy: evaluating/orienting, what/where, focal/ambient, examining/noticing, figural/spatial, foveal/ambient, and object/spatial. 1 Although these terminologies may not all describe precisely the same visual functions, they draw very similar distinctions between two qualitatively different aspects of vision.

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