Scene Perception and Higher Cognitive Processing

Abstract

  A scene refers to a specific environment or a view of a specific place in a meaningful way. Objects are not the only stimuli containing in the scene. Gist, or an overall meaning, and layout are also important elements to understand the scene. That is, multiple and complex information are contained in a scene with mutual relevance.
  In order to grasp a visual scene, there is a flow from a physiological level of sense-perception to a higher cognitive function level to recognize what kind of scene you saw. Therefore, viewing a scene is reported to be an active process in which visual world and memory are integrated.
  This paper briefly reviewed researches on basic theories how a scene was perceived and recognized, and the relationship between scene perception and cognitive functions, focusing on scene perception tasks and scene description tasks of persons with dementia and the elderly population.
  Some studies reported that the performances of scene recognition in Alzheimerʼs disease were deteriorated. Also, language abilities such as discourse in Alzheimerʼs disease were known to decline. Scene description task is regarded as a task combining scene perception and discourse ability, therefore it is not only to evaluate discourse ability but to implicate how the perceived scene and higher cognitive system are processed interactively.