1875 – Helmholtz says attention essential for visual perception

1875 – Helmholtz says attention essential for visual perception

1875 – Helmholtz says attention essential for visual perception 1607 2299 Looking out Loud

At the end of the 19th century,
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) argued that attention is essential for visual perception. Using himself as a subject and pages of briefly visible printed letters as stimuli, he found that attention could be directed in advance of the stimulus presentation to a particular region of the page, even though the eyes were kept fixed at a central point. He also found that attention was limited: The letters in by far the largest part of the visual field, even in the vicinity of the fixation point, were not automatically perceived.