Chapter 1 pt.2 Flashcards
What is Gestalt Pyshcology based on
The view that we percieve the world in terms of well-organized structures rather than seperated and indivudal elements
Gestalt psychologists were also interested in “apparent motion,” what does this mean?
Its a reference to the interation between parts, not the individual parts themselves
Gestalt psychologists considered the visual perception of ________ as critical to determining what objects were.
edges
J.J and Eleanor Gobson developed what approach
The Direct Perception Approach
What did the Gibsons emphasize? (what is the direct peprception approach)
That information in the sensory world is complex enough were the perceptual systems only need to directly perceive them. (in this view, senses dont send incomplete information to the brain)
The direct perception view emphasized ecological realism in experiments, what does this mean?
Rather than showing simple displays to participants in experiments, direct perception theorists advocated using more natural stimuli from the environment.
(because environmental stimuli is what we will actually encounter)
Who was Wolfgang Köhler?
A prominent gestalt psychologist why appliedit to auditory perception and other domains of psychology (including the famous study of problem solving in chimpanzees)
What idea does the Information-processing approach follow?
The idea that perceptual and cognitive systems can be viewed as the flow of information from one process to another
How does the information-processing approach work?
Information is collected by sensory processes and then flows to a variety of modules that decode the information, interpret it, and then allow the organism to act on it.
For the information processing approach, each stage takes a finite amount of time, how can the processes be observed or measured?
By recording reaction times as observers do various tasks
What is a key difference between the “information-processing view” and the “direct perception view”?
information-processing view requires internal cognitive processes to interpret the perceptual image, whereas the direct perception view asserts that the sensory input is sufficient in and of itself
What is a Key difference between the Gestalt view and the information-processing view?
the gestalt view emphasizes patterns and organization, whereas the information-processing view emphasizes the analysis of information and its flow from one system to another.
What is the Computational Approach?
An approach that studies perception by specifying the necessary computations the brain needs to carry out to percieve the world
Who developed the Computational approach, and what was it greatly influenced by?
Developed by David Marr.
It was heavily influenced by the growth of computer science and early theory of AI
David Marr attempted to specify perception in terms of what _____________ the brain needs to perform the task of perception. He believed the brain was an incredibly _________ __________.
Computations; Complicated computer
Using the approaches modern form of the computational appraoch, what did researchers attempt to develop to predict perceptual phenomena?
Mathematical Models
What is a key difference between the Computational approach and the information-procesing approach?
The computational approach is more theoretical as it focusses on modelling perception in computer simulations.
The information-processing approach is more linked to observations in behavioural experiments
What is the goal of neuroscience?
To understand sensation and perception in terms of structures and processes in the nervous system that produce it.
How does the neuroscience approach work? (2 steps)
1) They first examine the psysiological processes where a physical signal is converted into a neural signal
2) It then looks at connections from the sensory organs to the brain and then at regions in the brain itself that are involved in perceptual processes
Neuroscience is interested in the _____ level, why is this necessary?
Cellular
At the cellular level, neuroscientists can look at the actions of individual cells and how they respond to signals
Neuroscience is also interested in what processes occur in the brain to process and interpret sensory information. How do they do this?
They can look at larger units in the brain, and attemp to correlate those regions with specific perceptual functions
What tool was one of the most important developments in neurposcience?
The Microelectrode
How does the Microelectrode work?
Because of how small it is, it can penetrate a single neuron in the mammilian central nervous system without destroying the cell.
When in the cell, it can record the electrical activity or even stimulate the cell by carrying electrical current to the cell from an electrical source
Who was the microelectrode first used by?
it was used in the sensory systems by Kuffer. He used it to determine what kind of stimuli a particular cell responds to
Hubel and Wiesel are probably the names most associated with the microelectrode technique, why?
Their Nobel prize-winning work helped us to understand behaviour of individua cells and also the levels of organization in the brain and how it develops
What did Hubel and Wiesel find in the brains of cats and monkeys?
They found cells in their brains that were selective to one eye or the other, and other cells that responded only when both eyes were able to see the same objects
Single-cell recording made major constributions to neuroscience with animal models, but why is this used less often now days?
Because its difficult to do with humans, and we have increased concerns about animal welfare
What is Neuropsychology?
It is the study of the relation of brain damage to changes in behaviour. Scientists know what part of the brain is damaged and then look for behavioural changes in that individual
When did the study of neuropsychology begin?
In the 1870’s of Europe as antiseptic (prevent disease) procedures allowd soldiers to survive gunshot wounds
Explain the D.B case study.
A patient called DB had part of his occipital lobe (the V1 area) removed as a treatment for a tumor that was causing seizures.
It fixed his seizures, but he develped partial blindness in one area of his visual field.
As a result, it was discovered that the occipital love was responsible for seeing in a certian part of the visual field
What is Agnosia?
A deficit in some aspect of perception as a result of brain damage
What is Prosopagnosia?
A form of agnosia caused by damage of the temporal lobe, damage to this area results in the inability to recognize faces
(also called fusiform face area)
What is Amusia?
Where damage to areas of the right temporal lobe results in a persons loss of appreciation of music
Neuroscience research also includes neuroimaging techniques, what is neuroimaging?
Neuroimaging involves technologies that allow us to map living brains as they ingage in tasks like percieving, learning, and thinking.
One method of Neuroimaging is the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), explain how this works.
The fMRI can image blood levels in different areas of the brain, which correlates with activity levels in those regions.
This allows us to correlate activity in the brain with our sensory abilities
Why is the fMRI technique thought of as a hemodynamic technique (refers to measurement of the functional characteristics of the heart and the circulatory system)
Because it measures the bllood flow to the brain
What assumption does the fMRI technique make (why is it useful)
It assumes that because the brain is a biological organ, it requires oxygen. And the areas of the brain that are active require more oxygen therefore more blood than other areas of the brain.
For example, a person talking will need more oxygen delivered to the parts of the brain that are responsible for speech production
Kau et. al recorded the neural activity in the brains of participants tracking moving dots across a screen, what did he find?
There was an activity in the area of the brain called V3 located in the occipital lobe (associated with movement perception)
Why is neuroimaging important in scientific psychology?
It offers the oppotunity to watch the human brain as it does its work and can tell us a lot about the structure and function of the brain, and the nature of sensation and perception
Why can Neuroimaging be misleading sometimes?
Small differences in how studies are conducted can lead to significant variations in results, and some neural activity might appear significant just by chance.
It also only measures groups of cells instead of cells individually.
What is cognitive penetration?
The view that cognitive and emotional factors influence perception
What is Cognitive impenetrability?
The view that perception is NOT affected by cognitive factors, our perception remains the same regardless of our cognitive and emotional state
(the opposite of cognitive penetration)
The dominant view in the field is that perception is cognitive ____________.
Impenetrable
Delk and Fillenbaum did a study on colors and shapes, explain the study
They asked participants to match red objects (all the same red/orange color) to a color backround that ranged from light to dark red.
Some of the object were object that would be red in real life (like an apple, lips, and heart), other red objects were object that would not usually be red objects (like a bell and mushroom)
What did Delk and Fillenbaum find in their shape/color matching experiment
That participants added more red as a background to the objects that would be red in real life, and used less red for the objects that would not be red in real life.
This suggests that the knowledge of the objects was influencing people to percieve them as being more red than other objects (the cognitive association of objects to color influences how we perceive that color)
Freeman and colleagues did an experiment using pain and creams, explain what they did.
They gave three different identical creams to different groups before presenting a painful stimulus.
In the first condition, they told the participants that it would reduce the pain.
In the second condition, they told participants that the cream would increase the pain.
In the third they said it was neutral and wouldnt affect pain levels
What was the results of the Cream experiment?
The belief that the cream would lead to less pain led to less pain experienced compared to the second group, who experienced more pain after being told the cream would cause more pain.
These results suggest that our expectations influence the pain we experience
What illusion does the size-arrival effect lead to?
That smaller objects are less likely to collide with the viewer than bigger objects
DeLucias research shows that the human visual system uses two cues to make judgements about impending collisions, what are they?
1) Time collision = estimating the time it will take for an object to collide with you by dividing the objects optical size by the objects rate of expantion
2) Size of the object = also known as the size-arrival effect, larger objects are judged to be closer than smaller objects.
