5a Attention and Perception

Question 1

What is sensation?

Answer 1

stimulus detection process by which our sense organs respond to and translate/transduce environmental stimuli into nerve impulses (AP) that are sent to the brain

Question 2

What is perception?

Answer 2

active process of giving meaning to stimulus/sensation and organising it

Question 3

Explain the difference between top-down and bottom-up processing in perception

Answer 3

• TOP-DOWN:
  Processing in light of pre-existing knowledge/schemata/templates (motives, expectations, experiences, culture)
• BOTTOM-UP:
  Individual aspects of stimulus used to gain understanding by creating a unified perception of the whole

Both combine to give a best interpretation of the stimulus

Question 4

What are perceptual schemas?

Answer 4

Mental representation or image containing critical and distinctive features of a person or thing

A component of top-down processing – schemas provide mental templates that allow us to identify and classify sensory input, as each of our perceptions is essentially a hypothesis about the meaning of the sensory information

Question 5

What is assimilation?

Answer 5

Incorporating new experiences into existing schema

Question 6

What is accommodation?

Answer 6

The difference made by the process of assimilation

Question 7

What are the factors affecting perception of physical symptoms?

Answer 7

Attention
Environmental cues
Expectation
Emotion

Question 8

What are the two different types of attention and how are they different?

Answer 8

Focused attention – ability to respond discretely to specific visual, auditory and tactile stimuli
Divided attention – highest level of attention – refers to the ability to respond simultaneously to multiple tasks or multiple task demands

Question 9

What are the 2 processes involved in Attention?

Answer 9

• Focusing on certain stimuli

- Filtering out other incoming information

Question 10

Name the stimulus characteristics that affect attention

Answer 10

Intensity
Novelty
Movement
Contrast
Repetition

Question 11

What are some personal factors affecting attention?

Answer 11

Motives
Interests
Threats
Mood
Arousal

Question 12

What is the cocktail party effect?

Answer 12

Brain’s ability to focus one’s auditory attention (an effect of selective attention in the brain) on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli

Question 13

Recall an example of divided and one of focused attention

Answer 13

Divided: cooking & preparing many things
Focused: reading a book, watching a film