4.3 Vision II: Recognizing What We Perceive

Question 1

What’s Parallel Processing?

Answer 1

The brain’s capacity to perform multiple activities at the same time

Question 2

What’s the “Binding Problem”?

Answer 2

How the brain links features together so that we see unified objects in our visual world rather than free-floating or miscombined features

Question 3

What is Illusory Conjunction?

Answer 3

A perceptual mistake whereby the brain incorrectly combines features from multiple objects

Occur when features such as colour and shape are combined incorrectly

Question 4

Illusory Conjunction experiment example;

Answer 4

Researchers showed study participants visual displays in which black digits flanked coloured letters, then instructed them first to report the black digits and second to describe the coloured letters.

Participants frequently reported illusory conjunctions, claiming to have seen, for example, a blue A or a red X instead of the red A and the blue X that had actually been shown

Question 5

Which theory explains why Illusory Conjunction occurs?

Answer 5

Feature-integration Theory

Question 6

Feature-Detection Theory:

Answer 6

The idea that focused attention is not required to detect the individual features that make up a stimulus but is required to bind those individual features together

Question 7

What region of the brain is associated with the binding process?

Answer 7

The parietal lobes;

Damage to this region has been scientifically proven to affect attention to spatially distant objects, and produce illusory conjunctions

R.M. is a prime example of this

Question 8

What is the “modular view” of feature detectors?

Answer 8

Suggests that specialized brain areas, or modules, detect and represent faces or houses or even body parts

Question 9

What is the “distributed representation” of feature detectors?

Answer 9

The pattern of activity across multiple brain regions that identifies any viewed object, including faces

Question 10

Perceptual Consistency

Answer 10

A perceptual principle stating that even as aspects of sensory signals change, perception remains consistent.

Question 11

Which general principle helps explain why you still recognize your friend despite changes in hair colour or style or the addition of facial jewelry?

Answer 11

Perceptual Consistency

Question 12

What are the Gestalt Perceptual Grouping Rules?

Answer 12

Simplicity

Closure

Continuity

Similarity

Proximity

Common fate

Question 13

Define a “Template”

Answer 13

A mental representation that can be directly compared with a viewed shape in the retinal image

Question 14

What does “Parts-based object recognition” propose

Answer 14

That the brain deconstructs objects we see into a collection of parts

Question 15

What are “Monocular Depth Cues”?

Answer 15

Aspects of a scene that yield information about depth when viewed with only one eye.

Question 16

What type of Monocular Depth Cue automatically corrects for size differences and attributes them to differences in distance?

Answer 16

Familiar Size

Question 17

What are the different types of Monocular Depth Cues?

Answer 17

Familiar + Relative Size

Linear Perspective

Texture Gradient

Interposition

Relative height in the image

Question 18

What is Binocular Disparity?

Answer 18

The difference in the retinal images of the two eyes that provides information about depth;

Because our eyes are slightly separated, each registers a slightly different view of the world

Question 19

How does the Ames Room work? What is it an example of?

Answer 19

One of the most famous examples of an ILLUSION

The sides of the room form a trapezoid with parallel sides but a back wall that’s way off square. The uneven floor makes the room’s height in the far back corner shorter than the other.

Add misleading cues such as specially designed windows and flooring and position the room’s occupants in each far corner, and you’re ready to lure an unsuspecting observer

Question 20

What is the simplest example of Motion Perception?

Answer 20

An observer who does not move trying to perceive an object that does

In this instance, the object will stimulate different parts of the retina as it moves. Neural circuits in the brain can pick up on this and

Question 21

What region of the brain is specialized for the visual perception of motion?

Answer 21

Middle of the temporal lobe; referred to as “MT”

brain damage to this area can cause normal motion perception deficit

Question 22

Apparent Emotion

Answer 22

The perception of movement as a result of alternating signals appearing in rapid succession in different locations

Question 23

What was the Change Blindness example shown?

Answer 23

The video of the interrupted conversation of someone asking for directions. w/ construction workers moving through

Question 24

What is Inattentional Blindness?

Answer 24

A failure to perceive objects that are not the focus of attention

ex: The basketball-passing video with the gorilla walking through

Question 25

How do we sense motion?

Answer 25

The visual system must encode information about both space and time.