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Dr Richard Gregory – Visual Illusions in Space, New Scientist August 30th 1962

Suppose, that we were to meet something really odd - say a new life form - could we see it properly? The perceptual system is a computer, programmed by evolutionary experience and by our own personal experience of our world.

A new kind of object requires the perceptual computer to solve a new problem with an old programme, which may be neither adequate nor appropriate. There is evidence that primitive people at first see aircraft with feathers on their wings, and the early microscopists and explorers reported weird and wonderful creatures.

Both intellectually and visually we tend to see things in terms of our previous experience or fantasies, and both new objects and new ideas are difficult to accept or to 'see' straight.

The exploration of new worlds will be hazardous not only from without but also from within ourselves.