Behind the Looking-Glass: A Review on Human Symmetry Perception

Abstract: The human visual system is highly proficient in extracting bilateral symmetry from visual input. This paper reviews empirical and theoretical work on human symmetry perception with a focus on recent issues such as its neural underpinnings. Symmetry detection is shown to be a versatile, ongoing visual process that interacts with other visual processes. Evidence seems to converge towards the idea that  symmetry detection is subserved by a preprocessing stage involving spatial filters followed by information integration across the visual field in higher-tier cortical areas.