3 - Perception Flashcards

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1
Q

define perception

A

experiences that result from stimulation of the senses

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2
Q

what are some basic properties of perceptions

A
  1. they’re a process - something like reasoning but somewhat automatic
  2. perception occurs together with action
  3. perception plays a central role inn cognition in general - essential for creating memories and knnowleedfge, solving problems, communicating, etc.
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3
Q

what is the main issue with computers trying to perceive?

A

dont have all the knowledge that people do, we have a bunch of data that helps solve this problem

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4
Q

what are the difficulties in designing a perceiving machine? (4)

A
  1. stimulus ambiguity
  2. hidden or blurred objects
  3. varying view points
  4. scenes contain higher level information
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5
Q

explain stimulus ambiguity in perception

A

inverse projection problem - start from the stimulus on the eye and try to figure out what is causing it
- retinal images in this way can be created by more than one object

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6
Q

explain viewpoint invariance

A

the capacity to recognize an object from any perspective - very hard for computers

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7
Q

what is bottom up processing

A

the sequence of events that takes information from the eye and transmits it to the brain for processing

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8
Q

what is top down processing

A

bringing knowledge to bear on deliverances of bottom up processing

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9
Q

explain the ‘multiple personalities of blob’

A

can place the same blob into several blurred images and it appears to fit with each - ‘perceived as different objects depending on their orientation and the context within which they are seen’

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10
Q

what does the multiple personalities of blob tell us about why humans are superior to computers perceptually

A

the influence of top down processing on perception is easy for people but requires explicit programming in computers, so its hard to get gong

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11
Q

what are translational probabilities

A

the likelihood a sound with follow another within a word in a given language - computed implicitly by humans during language learning

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12
Q

what do we call the process of learning speech segmentation through translational probabilities

A

statistical learning - infants as young as 8 mo are capable of this

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13
Q

explain saffran’s study on stat learning in infants

A

4 nonsense words, produced in random strings with no break

  • TP within words was always 1.0, between was always .33
  • tested with three syllable stimuli, some of which were full words (that they’d heard already), others were part words
  • kids would listen to part word for longer bc of habituation
  • factual
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14
Q

Explain Helmoltz’ theory of unconscious inference

- what ‘principle’ is this based on?

A
  • realized that the image on a retina is ambiguous
  • how does the perceptual system decide that the patter was created by one over another possibility?
  • likelihood principle - we perceive the object that is most likely to have caused the stimuli
  • this is the unconscious inference
  • relies one knowledge of the environment
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15
Q

Explain the Gestalt theory of perception and its justifications w reference to Wundt

A
  • reject Wundt’s structuralism
  • can’t explain the phenomena of apparent movement; nothing in between the two lights that shows us movement
  • the whole is not the sum of its parts; led to the principles of perceptual organization
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16
Q

what are the main principles of perceptual organization?

A
  1. Good continuation
  2. pregnanz
  3. similarity
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17
Q

what is the principle of good continuation

A
  • points that are best connected by a smooth or straight line are seen as a line, and this line tends to be perceived as following the smoothest path
  • objects that are overlapped by other objects are perceived to continue behind the other
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18
Q

what is the law of pragnanz

A

aka principle of good figure, every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible - think the Olympic Rings

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19
Q

what is the law of similarity

A

similar things appear to be grouped together

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20
Q

where do gestalt laws come from?

A
  • wertheimer - innate laws built into the system

- contra helmhooltz who thought it was all learning

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21
Q

how do modern perceptual psychologists take experience into account in shaping gestalt like laws?

A

environmental regularities that shape perceptual laws

22
Q

what are physical regularities in the environment

A

regularly occurring physical properties, such as the prevalence of horizontal/vertical lines relative to oblique ones - creates the oblique effect (obliques are harder to perceive)

23
Q

explain the light from above assumption from physical regularities

A
  • we perceive light as shading as though it comes from above, because light does come from above
24
Q

what are semantic regularities

A

characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different types of scenes

25
Q

what is a scene schema

A

our mental representation of what a given scene would typically contain

26
Q

explain bayesian inference

A
  • Prior probability - initial belief about the probability of an outcome
  • likelihood - extent to which the available evidence is consistent with that outcome
  • calculate the two to find the highest probable outcome
27
Q

map bayesian inference onto the inverse projection problem

A
  • take a rectangular object
  • priors; book, paper, iPad, food tray
  • likelihood; distance from the object and the angle ur seeing it from, the context (cafeteria, maybe), ect.
  • outcome - automatic calculation of priors and likelihood
28
Q

relate bayesian inference to Helmholtz

A

we perceive what is most likely to have created the stimulation new have received, but reformatted inn terms of probabilities

29
Q

what do the three considered theories of perception have in common?

A

importance of top down processing - we use data about our environment gathered through our past experiences

30
Q

do we have more neurons for horizontals and verticals than obliques?

A

yes

31
Q

what explains the finding that we have more neurons for horizontals and verticals than obliques? (2)

A
  1. natural selection - we were more likely to survive given better perceptions of these than obliques, so more neurons were selected for this
  2. experience-dependent plasticity
32
Q

how did we find experience dependent plasticity in the brain (greebles)

A

fMRI
- fusiform face area in the temporal lobe - neurons respond to faces
- Gauthier (1999) experience dependent plasticity might play a role in determining neurones responses to faces and objects called greebles
- higher activation to faces than grebes before training
very similar after training (naming greebles w recognition)
- FFA just responds to complex visual stimuli we have expertise with (cars or birds also do the same thinig

33
Q

how does movement facilitate perception

A

gets us into different viewing perspectives

34
Q

what were the 2 methods used to discover the perception and action streams in the brain

A
  1. brain ablation

2. neuropsychology

35
Q

what is another term for brain ablation

A

lesioning

36
Q

what is an object discrimination problem

A

show the participant an object (target), then present it with another object; reqarded for knocking over the target
- used in monkeys

37
Q

what is a landmark discrimination problem

A

a landmark is beside one of two containers with food, monkey receives reward if they knock over the containier closest to the landmark

38
Q

explain Ungerleider and Mishkin’s study on brain ablation in monkeys - what pathway

A
  • removed part of the temporal lobe in monkeys after recording their responses in landmark and object discrimination tasks
  • object discrimination became very difficult for them
  • neural pathway (calle the WHAT pathway) responsible for object discrimination
39
Q

what is the ‘what’ pathway (location and function)

A
location - pathway leading from striate cortex to the temporal lobe 
function - object recognition
40
Q

explain Ungerleider and Mishkin’s study on brain ablation in monkeys - where pathway

A

removed the parietal lobes of some other monkeys in thhe study

  • had trouble with the landmark discrimination problem
  • responsible for object location - where pathway
41
Q

what is the scientific name for the what and where pathways

A
  1. what = ventral pathway
    - lower part of the brain (where the temp lobe is) is the ventral side
  2. where = dorsal pathway
    - vice versa for parietal lobe
42
Q

Explain Milner and Goodale’s findings using the neuropsychological approach on what and where pathways

A

revealed two brain streams in a 34 year old woman who suffered damage to temp. lobe following CO poisoning

  • incapable of rotating a card to match the orientation in a shifting slot
  • but could do it if she was asked to ‘mail’ the card through the slot
  • once she started moving the card she could rotate it fine, just couldn’t start the rotation
  • outcomes:
    1. pathway from visual cortex to temporal lobe = perception pathway
    2. visual cortex to parietal lobe = action pathway
43
Q

what do the perception and action pathways correspond to?

A
perception = what pathway
action = where pathway
44
Q

what are mirror neurons

A

neurons that respond both to the action and perception of that action
- they respond selectively to the action, not what the action’s object is

45
Q

are there mirror neurons in people

A

suggested by research - seen in studies on epilepsy

46
Q

what is the mirror neuron system

A

the distributed network of mirror neurons distributed across a humans brain

47
Q

what is the purpose of mirror neurons?

A
  1. determining the goal or intention behind an action, maybe
48
Q

evidence that mirror neurons are for interpreting intentions?

A
  1. Iacoboni et al 2005; measured brain activity while watching short film clips
    - each had them pick up a cup in different conditions (x3)
    - clip one - table with food, full cup// clip 2 - table with empty messy plates and an empty cup // clip 3 - just the hand and the cup
    - the 2 films with intention behind them had greater mirror neuron responses (1, 2 then 3 in order)
49
Q

how do mirror neurons signal intentions?

A

response of the neurons may be determined by the sequence of motor activity that would be expected to happen in a given context
- respond to the actual action plus the best guess as to what is coming next

50
Q

what is the size-weight illusion and what does it tell us about prediction

A
  • people are presented with two objects, same weight but different sizes
  • the larger one seems lighter when lifted together
  • explanation - we predict larger objects to be heavier so we expect it to be heavier and it feels lighter