Constructive perception:
A skill for coordinating perceptual discovery and conceptual generation
                             Masaki Suwa
     School of Computer and Cognitive Sciences, Chukyo University
        
One aspect of expertise, in chess, in diagrammatic reasoning, in
design, and in other domains, is inferring conceptual ideas from
perception. We propose that underlying a skill for this is a process
we call constructive perception, the deliberate adoption of perceptual
strategies in the service of cognition, from comprehension to
creativity. In the case of enabling new ideas in design, this seems to
be a coordination of two processes: reorganizing perception and
associating ideas.  The present research presents evidence for the two
components underlying constructive perception.  Generating new
interpretations of ambiguous sketches was correlated independently
with a perceptual ability, reorganizing parts of figures, and with a
conceptual ability, associative fluency. We speculate on implications
for expertise and for its nurturing.