What I would like you to do is to find a topic from chapter 4 that you were interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. But use at least 3 sources.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter, and why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you found related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it. At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
By now you all should be skilled at synthesizing the topical material you have obtained from the various web sites you visited. If you need a refresher please let me know.
Thanks,
--Dr. M
The topic I found interesting is agnosia. Agnosia is when there is a failure to recognize objects even though the person is able to see them. It often results in a loss of the ability to recognize, objects, people, sounds, shapes, or smells. I think it is interesting how the connection between a sensation and recognizing what that sensation is can be shut off. Agnosia is often a result of brain damage and can result from strokes, dementia, neurological or developmental disorders, and accidental injuries. Specifically the brain damage usually occurs in the occipital or parietal lobes of the brain while other cognition remain intact. Because we are currently focused on the visual system I will be discussing the various visual agnosias.
There are two classifications of visual agnosia: apperceptive and associative. Apperceptive agnosia patients lack the higher-level visual perception. These patients will often fail shape-recognition and shape-copying tests. This type of visual agnosia is often a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. A common apperceptive visual agnosia is simultanagnosia. Simultanagnosia is when multiple objects in a scene cannot be interpreted as a whole and patients cannot describe the overall nature of the scene. Dorsal simultanagnosia is when a patient can only see one object at a time and is often a result of lesions in the posterior parietal cortex. Ventral simultanagnosia is when patients can recognize whole objects but their recognition rate is impaired.
On the other hand, associative agnosia patients have normal perception but are unable to tap into their stored knowledge associated with objects (names, how it feels, etc). Below I have a video of a person with associative agnosia. He is able to see the object but cannot determine what it is called. He states it is “in descript”. These patients often can provide semantic information about an object. An example given in one of links below is when shown a picture of a kangaroo the person may not be able to come up with the word “kangaroo” but they might say “found in Australia” or “has a pouch”. Prosopagnosia is a type of associative agnosia when patients cannot recognize faces. These patients will learn to recognize people via other visual cues such as hair, glasses, scars, etc. Pure alexia is another form where patients cannot recognize words. There are various associative agnosias where patients cannot recognize specific types of objects. Treatment for agnosia is purely symptomatic and supportive.
Agnosia shows us how important our middle and higher-level vision processes are to our perception of the world. Without the ability to recognize and perceive objects we would live a life of never understanding the world around us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwQpaHQ0hYw
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/agnosia/agnosia.htm
http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/agnosia
I chose to further my knowledge on object recognition on the visual system, in particular Prosopagnosia. Normal perceptions of objects that are important aspects of visual perception are based on activity in early visual cortical areas. “Despite the complexity of human faces as visual stimuli, we rapidly and unthinkingly identify the faces of our peers. Our remarkable efficiency in this computationally formidable task suggests that our visual perceptual system employs a specific mechanism dedicated to processing facial identity. Among the strongest evidence for the existence of such a mechanism comes from a disorder called prosopagnosia, or “face blindness.” In our text it mentions that one may be able to recognize an object as a face, but not know who the person is. Prosopagnosia is a selective and often severe deficit in the ability to recognize others’ faces. People suffering from the disorder are often unable to recognize their friends and family members by face alone, instead relying on vocal cues for proper identification. They cannot name images of celebrities, even if they can describe who the celebrity is. However, their general visual ability and recognition of non-face objects often remains intact. An interesting fact is that this is heterogeneous disorder and is typically present at birth. Individuals with severe prosopagnosia may score four to six standard deviations below the average on such measures when deciding whether a face belongs to a set of pictures previously presented.
Furthermore, prosopagnosia is often reported along with other perceptual deficits, including partial blindness, cerebral achromatopsia (inability to perceive color), object agnosia (inability to recognize objects), topographagnosia (navigational deficits), and deficits in interpreting facial expression. In acquired prosopagnosia, these overlaps are unsurprising: neurological damage is typically diffuse, and brain regions involved in face processing are near both object recognition areas, such as the lateral occipital complex, and scene processing areas, such as the parahippocampal place area. In addition, some people with the disorder are unable to recognize their own face. Prosopagnosia is not related to memory dysfunction, memory loss, impaired vision, or learning disabilities. Prosopagnosia is thought to be the result of abnormalities, damage, or impairment in the right fusiform gyrus, a fold in the brain that appears to coordinate the neural systems that control facial perception and memory. Prosopagnosia can result from stroke, traumatic brain injury, or certain neurodegenerative diseases. In some cases it is a congenital disorder, present at birth in the absence of any brain damage. Congenital prosopagnosia appears to run in families, which makes it likely to be the result of a genetic mutation or deletion. Some degree of prosopagnosia is often present in children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, and may be the cause of their impaired social development. Prosopagnosia can be socially crippling. Individuals with the disorder often have difficulty recognizing family members and close friends. They often use other ways to identify people, such as relying on voice, clothing, or unique physical attributes, but these are not as effective as recognizing a face. Children with congenital prosopagnosia are born with the disability and have never had a time when they could recognize faces.
Check out this youtube video on a gentleman who grew up with this disorder, it is very interesting. I also followed the link the lady mentions in the video and it gives general information about this disorder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLGXAiSpN00
http://www.faceblind.org/research/index.html
http://yalescientific.kthx.us/2010/02/prosopagnosia-whose-face-is-it/
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/prosopagnosia/Prosopagnosia.htm
I chose to further my knowledge on object recognition on the visual system, in particular Prosopagnosia. Normal perceptions of objects that are important aspects of visual perception are based on activity in early visual cortical areas. “Despite the complexity of human faces as visual stimuli, we rapidly and unthinkingly identify the faces of our peers. Our remarkable efficiency in this computationally formidable task suggests that our visual perceptual system employs a specific mechanism dedicated to processing facial identity. Among the strongest evidence for the existence of such a mechanism comes from a disorder called prosopagnosia, or “face blindness.” In our text it mentions that one may be able to recognize an object as a face, but not know who the person is. Prosopagnosia is a selective and often severe deficit in the ability to recognize others’ faces. People suffering from the disorder are often unable to recognize their friends and family members by face alone, instead relying on vocal cues for proper identification. They cannot name images of celebrities, even if they can describe who the celebrity is. However, their general visual ability and recognition of non-face objects often remains intact. An interesting fact is that this is heterogeneous disorder and is typically present at birth. Individuals with severe prosopagnosia may score four to six standard deviations below the average on such measures when deciding whether a face belongs to a set of pictures previously presented.
Furthermore, prosopagnosia is often reported along with other perceptual deficits, including partial blindness, cerebral achromatopsia (inability to perceive color), object agnosia (inability to recognize objects), topographagnosia (navigational deficits), and deficits in interpreting facial expression. In acquired prosopagnosia, these overlaps are unsurprising: neurological damage is typically diffuse, and brain regions involved in face processing are near both object recognition areas, such as the lateral occipital complex, and scene processing areas, such as the parahippocampal place area. In addition, some people with the disorder are unable to recognize their own face. Prosopagnosia is not related to memory dysfunction, memory loss, impaired vision, or learning disabilities. Prosopagnosia is thought to be the result of abnormalities, damage, or impairment in the right fusiform gyrus, a fold in the brain that appears to coordinate the neural systems that control facial perception and memory. Prosopagnosia can result from stroke, traumatic brain injury, or certain neurodegenerative diseases. In some cases it is a congenital disorder, present at birth in the absence of any brain damage. Congenital prosopagnosia appears to run in families, which makes it likely to be the result of a genetic mutation or deletion. Some degree of prosopagnosia is often present in children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, and may be the cause of their impaired social development. Prosopagnosia can be socially crippling. Individuals with the disorder often have difficulty recognizing family members and close friends. They often use other ways to identify people, such as relying on voice, clothing, or unique physical attributes, but these are not as effective as recognizing a face. Children with congenital prosopagnosia are born with the disability and have never had a time when they could recognize faces.
Check out this youtube video on a gentleman who grew up with this disorder, it is very interesting. I also followed the link the lady mentions in the video and it gives general information about this disorder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLGXAiSpN00
http://www.faceblind.org/research/index.html
http://yalescientific.kthx.us/2010/02/prosopagnosia-whose-face-is-it/
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/prosopagnosia/Prosopagnosia.htm
I decided to do further research on prosopagnosia. The book describes this as “an inability to recognize faces” (Kluender, et al., 2006). Prosopagnosia is something that caught my interested right away and left me wanting to know more about it. I am a visual learner so the first place I went was youtube. I found a video about prosopagnosia and right away the title opened a whole new view point on this topic. The title of the video is “Sensation WITHOUT Perception”. In the video, the subject who’s name is Terri suffered from prosopagnosia. She was hurt in an accident and now cannot even tell the face of her own mother. Terri says the hardest thing for her is not being able to put a face to her family members. At one point in the video she says “it’s sort of like I’ve lost everyone, like everyone is gone.” This shows how severe this condition really is.
Furthermore, I did more research on prosopagnosia. It is a neurological disorder that can be caused by a stroke or some kind of trauma. Some people with the disorder might not even be able to recognize their own face. This disorder has nothing to do with memory. There are no real treatments for this disorder other than trying to help a person cope with prosopagnosia. There is research being done on the disorder.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/prosopagnosia/Prosopagnosia.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwCrxomPbtY
While having discussions with other class mates this topic was big. If I think about it too much I just get lost in the concept that this could really happen. It also caught my attention, thanks for all the info, it was interesting and educational!
A topic from chapter four that I found really interesting is prosopagnosia. Prosopagnosia is a disorder where the ability to recognize faces aren’t present, but the ability to recognize other objects is. People with this disorder even have trouble recognizing the people that are closest to them such as spouses and children. There are a few different causes to this disorder. The most documented one is brain damage from head trauma, stroke, or degenerative diseases. This group of people with the disorder is able to notice it easier because they used to have the ability to see faces like any other person. They’re also in contact with doctors because of their brain damage. This group is called acquired prosopagnosia.
The other types of people with this disorder develop it before they’ve developed normal face recognition skills which are during their teenage years. Individuals in this group develop the disorder genetically, before they’ve had experience with faces (prenatal problems), or they’ve had brain damage in their childhood years. This group of individuals has developmental prosopagnosia. Because people with developmental prosopagnosia have never had the full ability to recognize faces, they usually don’t even know they have a problem until later in life. Some researchers believe that this type of prosopagnosia is inherited due to the fact that it has been present in more than one family member. It has also been thought that people with autism may have prosopagnosia because children with autism have impaired social development and prosopagnosia might affect their difficulty in relating to others.
For both types prosopagnosia, there is a conscious and unconscious aspect to recognizing people. Some experiments have shown that when people with this disorder have been shown pictures of people they know and don’t know, they have a hard time identifying who’s who. However, when an emotional response measure was taken, like skin conductance, there seemed to be an emotional response to people they knew versus people they didn’t know, even though they had to conscious recognition.
There are no medical ways to treat prosopagnosia but there are ways to help these individuals cope with their loss. They can learn how to recognize others by using clues such as hair, voice, and clothes. Individuals with this disorder still have troubles in other situations like watching television shows because they can’t keep track of each character. They may also suffer from social awkwardness which may lead to shyness or being withdrawn.
http://www.crystalinks.com/prosopagnosia.html
http://www.faceblind.org/research/
http://rarediseases.about.com/od/rarediseasesp/a/prosopagnosia.htm
I thought the topic of ambiguous figures was very interesting. This is when a picture can be seen or interpreted in two different ways. Two examples are the Necker cubes and duck-rabbits. These can be interpreted in different ways depending what our visual system wants to see. This also leads to accidental viewpoints, which according to the book are viewing positions that produce regularity in the image that isn't present in the world. One example is when there are four squares put into one square. We see these differences because the edges are lined up perfectly. It is really strange because we see the exact same edges, lines, curves, textures, you name it, but we can change our perceptions of those pictures to create different images. The vase/profile illusion is a very common one in which we can see either a vase or two faces in the shadows. This topic kind of tests our sense of reality and our view about life in general. How do we know what we see is really what we are supposed to be seeing or what is real? It creates a question about the subjectivity and uncertainty of different aspects in life. Below I found some very good website for ambiguous figures as well as other illusions that trick our eyes and allow some leeway in our perceptions of these pictures.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/ambigfig
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/2604
http://neurochannels.blogspot.com/2009/09/consciousness-7-more-ambiguous-figures.html
In my opinion, interesting topic from chapter 4 that i would like to get more information about is prosopagnosia, also called face blindness. The textbook gives only basic information about this disorder, but I found interesting material and examples of prosopagnosia.
Visual prosopagnosia, sensation without perception is a rare disorder where the ability of recognizing faces is impaired.
First time the term was used by German neurologist 1947 by Joachim Bodamer.
In the video that I found, the lady who suffer from prosopagnosia get into the study where she is trying to recognize some faces and she can not. She said that many time she is embarrassed of it and people can think of her as a snob that she does not remember someone's face. According to her, the worst is when she cannot recognize the family and closest friend. The video shows also that the women cannot even recognize herself on the picture!
What are the causes of prosopagnosia? The main cause is due to brain damage suffered after maturity from head trauma, stroke, and degenerative diseases.
One feature about this disorder is that t suggests both a conscious and unconscious aspect to face recognition.However, when a measure of emotional response is taken there tends to be an emotional response to familiar people even though no conscious recognition takes place. Therefore, that means that emotions plays a big role in face recognition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwCrxomPbtY
http://www.crystalinks.com/prosopagnosia.html
http://www.faceblind.org/research/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZogbIvdgfzQ
For this weeks topical blog I decided to do more research on the Gestalt principles of perception. The book refers to these as gestalt grouping rules (a set of rules describing which elements in an image will appear to group together. the original list was assembled by members of the gestalt school of thought). Before I get into the principles, I will first explain some background information. Gestalt is the name of a school of thought that stressed that the perceptual whole could be greater than the apparent sum of the parts. It was founded by Max Wertheirmer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka.
While researching the principles of perception, I also came across the Phi Phenomenon. This is where there is a rapid sequences of perceptual events, such as rows of flashing lights, create the illusion of motion even when there is none. This illusion is what is used to make movies.
There are 5 principles of perception. They are the law of similarity, the law of pragnanz, the law of proximity, the law of continuity, and the law of closure. The law of similarity states that items that are similar tend to be grouped together. An example would be a row of squares next to a row of circles. Instead of seeing it as a square next to a circle, you will be more likely to see a column of squares next to a column of circles. The law of pragnanz is also referred to as the law of simplicity. This law states that we reduce images to their simplest form in order to remember them easier. The law of proximity states that we tend to group objects together that are close to each other. The law of continuity states that lines are seen as following the smoothest path. the law of closure states that objects grouped together are seen as a whole. An example of this would be when we view a square with parts of the line missing, but we are still seeing the lines as a square.
opps...I forgot to add the URL's for the websites that I used...
http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/ss/gestaltlaws_6.htm
http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm
http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/~kbroom/Lectures/gestalt.htm
One topic that I found interesting was camouflage. Camouflage is a method of hiding that allows a visible organism to remain unnoticed by blending in with the environment. Some examples are, modern military uniforms, a butterfly blending in with leafs, as well as tiger stripes. One form of camouflage is know as adaptive camouflage is a type of camouflage that uses technology to allow an object to blend into its surroundings by use of a coating that is able to change its appearance, color, luminance, and reflective properties. This type of camouflage is very attractive because it has the ability to provide perfect concealment from visual detection. This type of camouflage has its origins in World War II when Canadian Navy corvettes used a diffused lighting technique. More modern techniques began with a United States Air Force project that placed low-intensity blue lights on an aircraft. The addition of these blue lights was because the night skies are not pitch black, thus the addition of the blue light makes the aircraft almost completely blend into the night sky. The invention of the OLEDs or organic light-emitting diodes has led to a rapid development in the field of active camouflage. The United States had a project with Boeing called Bird of Prey which was suppose to be the next level of active camouflage, but data is limited because of the classified nature of the project. It was constructed in 1996 and retired 3 years later in 1999.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Bird_of_Prey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_camouflage
Images
http://rookery9.aviary.com.s3.amazonaws.com/3522000/3522046_46fb_625x1000.jpg
After reading Ch. 4 I became interested in the mystery of object recognition. There are many theories on object recognition and the visual system. What all of the theories have an common is that object recognition happens in steps, kind of like putting the puzzle pieces together. Some ojects we recognize faster the more we are exposed to them. I then started researching how technology is developing object recognition.
An artifical intelligence lab in Massachusetts has developed new software that works more like a human mind that actually goes line by line and step by step to recognize an object. Of course it is not a human mind and does not recognize objects as fast but it is a great technological improvement compared to software of the past. The more objects it recognizes the more it remembers and because of that it will take up less memory than software previously.
Something closer to home I found was the IPhone. In the future they plan on the iphone being able to recognize objects through the camera lense and then it will tell you all the information about that object. It will be an app you can download. For example say you are at the arch in St. Louis. The phone will recognize the structure and tell you how much addmission prices are along with other information about the arch. I thought that was really neat. The article talked about eventually being able to recognize faces as well which I think would be kind of creepy.
Lastly another piece of technology close to home is a video on youtube of a PC using the kinect to recognize objects. it doesnt get specific but can recognize a lot of objects. It's crazy how fast technology is developing!
sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRBozGoa69s
http://mashable.com/2009/07/10/iphone-object-recognition/
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-05/new-software-breaks-images-smaller-parts-simplifying-object-recognition
I was interested in the topic of agnosia. But I noticed that other people looked into agnosia and prosopagnosia. Therefore I decided to look up different types of agnosia to find one that was interesting to me. The form of agnosia I decided on was Simultanagnosia. “Simultanagnosia is a rare neurological disorder characterized by the inability of an individual to perceive more than a single object at a time” People with this condition are able to identify objects if kept separate but when put together they are unable to identify more than one object in the picture. There are 2 different types of simultanagnosia that I will go over, dorsal and ventral.
Dorsal simultanagnosia (DS) seems to be from a bilateral parietoocci-pital lesion. If there is a group of objects (all of which the patient is able to recognize normally) they will focus on one object and not even recognize that the others are present. It’s believed to be an issue with their visual attention. People with this disorder often have trouble with counting and reading because these tasks involve focusing on more than one thing at a time. Additionally people with DS are often believed by others to be blind because they often bump in to objects because they don’t recognize that they are there.
Ventral simultanagnosia (VS) seems to be caused by a lesion to the left inferior temporooccipital region. This is very similar to DS in that patients suffering from both can not identify more than one object at a time; however people with VS can see more than one object at a time without identifying it. Those with VS have less problems with counting because they can see all the objects and less of an issue with bumping into objects. When given enough time they are sometimes able to identify multiple objects. When looking at a picture for an extended period of time they are able to describe parts of the picture but never seem to appreciate the whole. People with VS are able to read but it generally takes a long time. They are identified as letter-by-letter readers, meaning they only recognize one letter of the word at a time.
http://pagerankstudio.com/Blog/2010/09/agnosia-neuroanatomy-apperceptive-agnosia-simultanagnosia-higher-order-apperceptive-deficits-associative-agnosia-integrative-agnosia-optic-aphasia-category-specific-visual-agnosia-relationship/
http://www.psych.ucalgary.ca/pace/VA-Lab/Visual%20Agnosias/ventralstim.htm
http://www.psych.ucalgary.ca/pace/VA-Lab/Visual%20Agnosias/dosralstim.html
Chapter 4 is about object and face recognition. The first couple of chapters were limited to just how our eyes pick up light through our retina and what our primary visual cortex makes of these perceptions. To label and recognize objects, information is sent from visual cortex to other cortex, our temporal and parietal lobes. In this chapter, face recognition is shows how complex our system of labeling and recognizing things. Damage to our temporal lobe of the brain can produce prosopagnosia, a disorder which a patient can no longer identify faces. The book states that this shows there is a difference between knowing that an object is a face and understanding and labeling whose face it is. I think this is interesting because there is some many times I see a face and have no idea where I have seen the face before or place the person. According to the website faceblind.com, prosopagnosia is more than just everyday problems. It is when people cannot even recognize the faces of people they spend most of their time with like their spouses or children or they can no longer follow a movie because they cannot really the faces of the main characters. Damage to the temporal lobe is the only known cause to this problem. Sciencedaily.com similarly states that this unknown though. Face recognition is one of the hardest brain activities because faces are so similar, and researches have found that there is a separate brain area for faces than for objects. This can help trying help people with prosopagnosia.
The parietal lobe of the brain also works with the visual system. Our parietal lobe is mostly in charge of sensory according to thinkquest.org. This lobe allows us to double task or to pay attention to more than one thing at once. Furthermore, we can choose what we choose to paid attention to. These two areas make up the two stream hypothesis, where visual information exits the occipital lobe and leave into parietal lobe and temporal lobe. I think this is interesting because if not for this interaction with other lobes, our vision would not be as useful.
http://library.thinkquest.org/19910/data/parietal_lobe.htm
http://www.faceblind.org/research/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990624080203.htm
Light stimulation is interpreted as presence and location of lines and direction by the ganglion cells. In the lateral geniculate the information is synthesized and sent on for further processing in the primary visual cortex. After this there is even more processing, object recognition is an aspect of cognition that operates beyond just what we see. It ties what we see to how we think about and perceive the image. Areas in the temporal lobe are largely responsible for the the spatial logic that guides the principles of what we perceive. An article printed by a professor at Rutgers defines four separate coding processes that occur to establish all the objects we see in our cognitive experience. These were defined by statistically examining fMRI results on object perception. The first two coding processes are labeled as local, meaning they exist in a compact area in the temporal lobe. The latter two are distributed codes and access several areas in the temporal lobe in a usually characterized pattern. The first process that exists is a detector, it activates when an object of the desired type enters the visual field. The second process assesses the likelihood that objects in the visual field are of the desired type. The third process is distributed and is what is called non-overlapping. Meaning its pattern of activation is unique to that particular object where as the fourth process is partially or fully overlapping meaning the same areas in the brain are handling information from several types of objects. Perhaps the fourth type is what enables us to draw similarities or experience and appreciate metaphors. It seems to try to analyze objects from the perspective of how other objects have influenced the brain.
Part 1
http://www.psych.rutgers.edu/~jose/courses/578/Hanson_etal_2004.pdf
The temporal lobe is surprisingly very involved in the visual system. I mean its surprising because usually you are told that for the most part temporal lobes deal with hearing and such in basic bio classes and intro psych. But the temporal lobe seems to be a very important part of many higher order cognitive processes. Object recognition is one of these processes. A new software program that recognizes objects may simulate some of the organization of information that occurs in the temporal lobe. It scans objects and compares them to a library of items that are categorically the same. It does this by breaking the image into lines, and matching stored line diagrams of items determines that the item's line pattern is most similar to a particular category of items. For example a chair is placed in front of the scanner, and the program creates a line pattern, a series of vertical and horizontal lines in particular places at particular angles. If you look at the web-site you can usually make out the image from the line diagrams. The program has sort of canonic line diagrams stored for defined categories. So for chair there is a line diagram consisting of lines that occurred the most often in scans of many previous chairs. The program overlaps these stored canonic perspective with the currently scanned line diagram and determines which category, represented by the stored line diagram, best matches the scanned object. This process seems to crudely simulate a portion of our own visual system. We too have stored canonic images that represent a norm from a categorical organization. And we too have processes that analyze our visual fields in terms lines. Lines seem to act as cues for the cells in the striate cortex to route the information to specific parts of the temporal lobe that specialize in object recognition. The difference between our object recognition system and the program's line diagram comparison is that the computer is limited to the categories programmed into it, cognitively we have countless categories and sub categories and can draw associations between categories with information other than the crude line perceptions. Expectations and verbal representations of objects can affect our perception.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-05/new-software-breaks-images-smaller-parts-simplifying-object-recognition