Perceptual Priors

Perceptual Priors

Reviewed by Faisal Zaidi

Perception is an inference drawn from insufficient evidence, so it needs assumptions to close the gap. You did not choose them, you cannot inspect them, and their output arrives feeling like plain fact.

What it is

A prior is what the system falls back on when the data runs out. Where the evidence is strong the prior contributes almost nothing and everybody agrees. Where the evidence is weak the prior does most of the work, and people diverge without any of them making an error.

The consequence worth keeping is that confidence is no guide. Perception does not report how much of its answer came from the world and how much came from the assumption.