Attention and Perception Flashcards
What is sensation?
The stimulus detection system by which our sense organs respond to and translate environmental stimuli into nerve impulses that are sent to the brain
What is perception?
The active process of organising the stimulus output and giving it meaning
What is top-down approach?
Processing in light of existing knowledge
Influenced by many psychological influences such as our motives, expectations, previous experiences and cultural expectations
What is the bottom up approach?
Individual elements are combined to make a unified perception
refers to the idea that the nerve impulses we receive from senses activate higher cortical areas in order for us to perceive them
What factors affect perception?
- attention
- past experiences
- current drive state (e.g arousal state)
- emotions
- individual values and expectations
- environment
- cultural background
What are Gestalt’s laws of grouping?
CONTINUITY
When the eye is compelled to move through one object and continue to another object - when we perceive things, we look for continuity of movement.
SIMILARITY
Similar things are perceived as being grouped together.
PROXIMITY
Objects near each other are grouped together.
CLOSURE
Things are grouped together if they seem to complete some entity. If a picture has several parts of it missing, our brains will very quickly close this gap up. It is very rapid.
What is visual agnosia?
IMPAIRMENT IN VISUAL RECOGNITION
- Basic vision spared – can make sense of distance, shape and colour
- Primary visual cortex can be mostly intact
- The patient not blind
- Knowledgeable about info. from other senses (e.g. if they touch an object, naming is typically simple)
- Associated with bilateral lesions to the occipital, occiptotemporal, or occipitoparietal lobes
What are the types of agnosia?
Apperceptive Agnosia: A failure to integrate the perceptual elements of the stimulus.
- WHEN THE VERY BASIC ELEMENTS OF VISUAL PERCEPTION ARE DAMAGED
- Individual elements perceived normally
- May be able to indicate discrete awareness of parts of a printed word but cannot organised into a whole
- Damage to lower level occipital regions
Associative Agnosia: A failure of retrieval of semantic information.
- DAMAGE IS FURTHER UP THE PATHWAY – BASIC COMPONENTS ARE OKAY
- Shape, colour, texture can all be perceived normally
- Typically sensory specific e.g. if object touched, then recognised
- Damage to higher order occipital regions
What is attention?
process of focusing conscious awareness, providing heightened sensitivity to a limited range of experience requiring more intensive processing
2 processes of attention:
- Focus on a certain aspect
- Filter out other information
What are the components of attention?
- Focused attention (THE SPOTLIGHT) - involves really focusing on something specific and trying to ignore the other stimuli around us
- Divided attention (PAYING ATTENTION TO MORE THAN ONE THING AT ONCE)
What stimulus factors affect attention?
- Intensity
- Novelty
- Movement
- Contrast
- Repetition
What personal factors affect attention?
- Motives
- Interests
- Threats
- Mood
- Arousal
What is the cocktail party effect?
We can focus our attention on one person’s voice in spite of all the other conversations. But, when someone says your name in another conversation nearby, you will pay attention to it
In a crowded room, we reject some conversations, and generally focus on one - any conversation we do not focus on, we struggle to recall any information
What are the stages of learning a skill?
Cognitive stage:
- Development of mental resources
- Learning requires explicit instruction through teaching from an ‘expert’, demonstration, and self-observation
Associative stage:
- An effective motor programme has been developed to carry out the broad skill but lacks ability to perform finer subtasks with fluency
Autonomous stage
- The skill is largely automatic
- Rely on implicit knowledge and motor co-ordination, rather than instruction
- The more automatic a task, the less conscious control available
What are the categories of pain?
Acute pain: pain that we have only experienced for a short amount of time that is directly related to tissue damage within the body. It generally starts to heal.
Chronic pain: pain has been experienced for a longer period of time. There are lots of psychological factors influencing the way in which pain is experienced and perceived.
