Visual Perception and Perceptual Processing in Real and Virtual Environments

We present a brief outline of the development of research in visual perception with the advent of new technologies up to New Media and virtual environments. There is a mutual inspiration and benefiting between fundamental and applied research and technological progress which should be utilized by the disciplines involved. Next, an overview of a conference, held in Nara (Japan) September 2001, is given of which different selections of articles are presented in the current special issues of the Swiss Journal of Psychology and of Japanese Psychological Research.