This pair of papers, originally submitted as a single paper, represents a bold attempt to present a very unique and original concept of perceptual computation which is very different from conventional concepts of computation. It is a holistic global style of computation as suggested by Gestalt theory, to account for the holistic properties of perception itself. Unfortunately this style of computation is very difficult to describe, because by its very nature it does not lend itself to the kind of rigorous analysis and deterministic description favored in scientific papers. The original Gestaltists encountered this same difficulty in presenting Gestalt theory to the world.

The approach I have taken was to present first a very simplistic model of certain selected aspects of brightness perception, and to demonstrate how a simple model based on emergent principles and guided by the perceptal modeling approach can be devised to account for those selected aspects of perception. This was the intent of the model presented in the first paper. In the second paper I have attempted to show how that same general principle of emergent computation based on the same principle of perceptual modeling, offers a promising way to address some of the most difficult and challenging aspects of brightness perception which continue to defy our best attempts to explain them by other means.

Unfortunately the larger message of these papers was entirely lost on these reviewers. The first paper was interpreted as a specific model of brightness perception rather than as a demonstration of a unique and interesting principle of perceptual computation, exemplified in a particular but limited model of brightness perception. The model was criticized therefore on the basis of its ability to account for specific perceptual phenomena relative to other proposed models. Lost in the shuffle was the fact that the model presented in the first paper was superceded or supplanted by the more sophisticated and complete model in the second paper, although that model was described in somewhat more vague and general terms.

It looks like I could have fought to get Paper I accepted eventually, although to do so I would have had to mis-represent its original intent, and to demonstrate that it offers a better account of the details of brightness perception than alternative models like Grossberg's etc.

But the larger message of the second paper is that brightness perception will never be explained to any satisfaction unless we take into account the three-dimensional aspect of perception, and our perceptual ability to perceive the pattern of illumination apparently falling on a perceived object.

I have discovered that it is very difficult to communicate a larger paradigmatic message through the peer review process. The next time I attempted such an ambitious paper I limited it to spatial perception, and left brightness out of it altogether.