Seeing and thinking in pictures: A review of visual information processing

Abstract Constructive and ecological theories of perception raise questions about whether visual perception is inherently data‐driven (bottom‐up) or interpreted in terms of higher‐order cognitions (top‐down). Analogies between these theoretical perspectives and the two visual systems involved in visual perception (the dorsal and ventral stream) suggest that the literature on visual information processing can be organized around two types of processes: object processing and spatial processing. Object processing involves the identification and recognition of stimuli in the environment and is shaped by existing concepts and associations in memory. It is associated with the processing of properties of objects such as color, size, shape, and pictorial details that are considered in this review. Spatial processing involves the perception of location, movement, spatial relations, and transformation of objects and other stimuli. Imagery‐based processes that are used to transform marketing stimuli in order to simulate various possibilities are reviewed in this section along with individual differences in spatial and visual abilities.