Recognition and Identification 
Changes in the constituent 
parts of the letter E do not 
much affect our perception of 
similarity if the 
organizational relations are 
preserved. 
 
Earlier, I spoke of the 
recognition of the map of 
Europe and said it was based 
upon the proper perception of 
the pattern in the illustration. 
One can distinguish between a 
process that leads only to a 
perception of shape (or of 
depth, or of size, or of any 
object property) and a process 
that leads beyond perception of 
shape to its recognition and 
identification. Once we 
organize the pattern properly 
and perceive the white region 
as figure (and rotate it 
mentally to its upright 
position), we can recognize 
this shape as familiar and 
identify it as representing the 
continent of Europe. 
Ordinarily then, for familiar 
objects at least, recognition 
occurs after shape has been 
perceived. To be sure, in our 
subjective experience, 
recognition seems to be 
simultaneous with our 
perception of shape. But 
logically we must presume that 
the process underlying the 
perception of shape precedes 
by some finite interval of time, 
however brief, the process 
underlying recognition. Of 
course for unfamiliar, novel 
shapes, the perception of 
shape will not lead to any such 
recognition. Recognition and 
identification necessarily 
imply some contribution from 
past experience to the present 
experience, but perception 
does not.