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Every game you play has to be played in context -- either in real life or in simulation. And in every game you have to sense what is going on. It is by means of that investigative tool, perception, that we do the looking, mostly by our visual system, namely our eyes. You have to keep track of events. You have to look to see what's happening.

But looking isn't seeing. As focused on the game as you might be, it's not enough just to look. By itself, looking solves nothing. It only expresses a search, not a solution. You can look at stock market prices and not see beyond a jumble of numbers. A quarterback can study his opponent and not see the defensive strategy in place. Similarly, you can keep your eye on a target and not quite tell how it's moving.

Even a house cat can look, or at least direct its gaze -- for example at what we recognize as "words of a book." But its "investigation of the book," if that's what it is, falls well short of success. Perceptual skill of a special kind is needed to see the book for what it is to us, to see it as a specific object and have the meaning it has.

The effort calls for the suitable neural structures. The words have to be interpreted -- i.e., constructed as words. It takes an idea, a concept. It takes a kind of understanding that a typical pet doesn't have. The pet doesn’t have the neural equipment to pattern its world in a way that generates relevant book or tennis information, though no doubt it has its own "facts," for it is, after all, a living, sensing creature. The cat is "outside" the human world in this respect, as we are "outside" of the cat’s world.

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Just like the cat, we can't perceive anything from the outside. By virtue of perception we have to become embedded in the world we view. We slide into it, as it were, going from one context to another, from one physical, social, cultural arena to another, and become part of it. We continue to process data as we move, but the data is continually changing. For example, we may leave the context of our automobile and engage the context of a tennis court or soccer stadium. If and when we do, we come to be in the new context, and of it. We have to be. We are affected by the observations even as we modify what we observe to make it meaningful. A great deal happens in the exchange, most of which we know very little about, except that much of the brain is dedicated to the task.

In the first place, our perception is structurally different from the (presumed) "energy" or stimulus that actually impinges on our retinas (the mass of sensory cells at the back of the eyes). The "objective" stuff that we see -- the emotionally loaded, 3D environmental construction of people, houses, cars, etc. -- is significantly different from the geometric configuration that presents itself on our retinas as stimulus. For one thing, the retinal images (or stimuli) are strictly two-dimensional – i.e., topologically flat -- whereas our observed world is three-dimensional. Secondly, the stimulus can’t be patterned (at least not for us), since we put the patterns together in the processing. And thirdly, that patterning is in perspective, through which increasing distance renders objects smaller. In perception we interpret the retinal images and produce solid perceptual objects in space-time. Through that interpretation we create our perceived worlds – our virtual realities, which is to say our representation of the objective world.

For observations to be possible, we have to become part of the setting we observe. There is no viewing from the outside. We interpret the setting (with ourselves more or less at its center) and so we participate in it, making it ours. Check this against your own experience -- you are always "here" and everybody else is "out there." And all of you, together, make up the experience. In the process, our interpretation changes us. And the interpretation itself changes with increased knowledge and understanding. Perception is a highly interactive study.

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