Abstract
This review article provides a comprehensive overview of scene perception, including its emergence and its central role in visual cognition. The main aim is to re-evaluate theories of scene perception, that have often been presented in incomplete or reductionist terms over the past half-century, and to offer a more integrative perspective. The first section defines the concepts of scene and scene perception within a theoretical framework, explaining how information acquired from a scene is processed through low-, mid- and high-level cognitive processes. The second section argues that scene perception cannot be reduced to a passive visual process based solely on object recognition or the rapid extraction of scene gist. Instead, scene perception conceptualized as a dynamic mechanism that supports interaction with the environment, prediction, and action planning. In this view, scene perception lies at the heart of cognitive processes that prepare the observer to predict the world, evaluate affordances and act effectively within their surroundings. Overall, the review emphasizes that scene perception should be regarded as a multi-layered and holistic cognitive process shaped by prediction, action planning, memory schemas, and attentional guidance. In this respect, the contribution of the review lies in bringing together different theoretical approaches to scene perception and offering an integrative perspective within the cognitive psychology literature.
Keywords
Scene perception, visual cognition, scene semantics, affordance, action planning