Chapter 2 - Visual and Auditory Recognition

Question 1

perception

Answer 1

using knowledge to gather and interpret stimuli gathered by the senses

Question 2

object recognition

Answer 2

identifying a complex arrangement of sensory stimuli and perceive that this pattern is separate from the background

Question 3

distal stimulus

Answer 3

actual object

Question 4

proximal stimulus

Answer 4

image registered in the sensory receptors within our sensory organs (that transmit to the brain)

Question 5

figure ground illusion

Answer 5

where the figure (distinct shape) and ground (background) switch - vase and two profiles example - usually two colours

Question 6

illusory contour

Answer 6

edges appear where they don’t exist - we fill in the blanks - involves bottom-up and top-down processing

Question 7

visual perception is complex or simple

Answer 7

complex

Question 8

template matching theory

Answer 8

specific patterns are stored in memory - letters (so we see different letters and match them to a base model)

Question 9

feature-analysis models

Answer 9

visual stimulus is composed of small number of distinctive charax - like letters: angled lines, horiz lines, curves, etc. –> feature

Question 10

recognition by components model

Answer 10

3d shapes - components called geons - coffee cup = cylinder plus curved handle, etc. –> geon

Question 11

top down processing

Answer 11

using our existing knowledge, more common in familiar situations

Question 12

bottom-up processing

Answer 12

using external environment as input to perceive something - more likely to be used in novel situations

Question 13

word superiority effect

Answer 13

seeing a letter in context - e.g. in a word helps us identify the letter quicker than the letter by itself

Question 14

change blindness vs. inattentional blindness

Answer 14

change blindness = inability to notice a change; inattentional blindness =focusing so much on one thing that you don’t notice something else happening / some other action - in the scene often as a result of not expecting it - highlights top-down processing relating to expectations (e.g. expecting the same background - the ape in the basketball game)

Question 15

prosopagnosia

Answer 15

inability to recognize faces

Question 16

holistic recognition

Answer 16

gestalt - face recognition - overall quality transcends indiv elements

Question 17

face superiority

Answer 17

similar to word superiority - better at recognizing each part when it’s in the context of the face

Question 18

phoneme

Answer 18

basic unit of spoken language

Question 19

inter speaker variability

Answer 19

diff speakers of same language produce the same sound differently - age gender regional dialect impactful

Question 20

coarticulation

Answer 20

• diff sound of phoneme depending on surrounding phonemes (idle vs. don’t, tap vs. paper)

Question 21

phonemic restoration

Answer 21

if a sound is missing - hear only part of the word - people will fill in the blanks based on context: eel - on the axle, eel on the shoe, eel on the orange

Question 22

special mechanism approach

Answer 22

speech is special, device we are born with to allow us to decode speech, phonetic module

Question 23

general mechanism approach

Answer 23

same mechanism used to perceive speech and non-speech sounds

Question 24

mcgurk effect

Answer 24

supports general mechanism approach - perceiving speech can be influenced by visual information of the speaker’s face mouth movement articulating an ambiguous phoneme: bab vs. dad - would determine it is dad due to context clues - superior temporal cortex