Chapter 2 - Visual and Auditory Recognition

Question 1

What happens during object recognition?

Answer 1

Identify complex arrangement of sensory stimuli and perceive pattern is separate from background

Question 2

What is the bottom up part of perception?

Top down?

Answer 2

The analysis of the physical properties of input occurring early after it makes contact with the sensory receptors
After early sensory processing, additional high-level processing occurs
Matches to stored knowledge, is recognized

Question 3

How fadst does info travel from retina to primary visual cortex?

Answer 3

50-80 milliseconds

Question 4

How many other areas of the cortex play a role in visual perception?

Answer 4

30

Question 5

Which lobe does object recognition rely on?

Answer 5

Parietal lobe

Question 6

How are ground-figure reversals explained?

Answer 6

The neurons in visual cortex adapt to one figure
People try to solve the paradox by alternating between two reasonable solutions
Filling in blanks

Question 7

What are the two dominant theories of object recognition?

Answer 7

1. Feature-analysis theory:
   Distinctive features for each of the alphabet characters remain constant. Mostly letters and numbers. P and R share features so slower to differentiate. Hubel and Wiesel’s bar of light and neurons firing. Feature detectors present at birth. Nature too complex
2. Recognition by Components theory:
   Arrangement of geons to form meaningful objects. Three enough. Young children may not differentiate.
   Viewer-centered approach: we store a small number of views of 3D objects. Recognize more quickly from standard viewpoint.

Question 8

What is top-down processing?

Answer 8

How concepts, memory, expectations influence object recognition
Certain shapes in certain locations
Specific structures along the route between retina and visual cortex store info about relative likelihood of seeing stimuli in a context
Can read word if letters are rearranged

Question 9

What is word superiority effect?

Answer 9

We identify single letter more rapidly when it appears in meaningful word than alone or in meaningless string
Works for entire words

Question 10

Change blindness?

Inattentional blindness?

Answer 10

1. Fail to detect change in scene.
   When perceiving entire scene, top-down leads to assume the meaning of the scene remains stable
   Fail to detect new object in scene when we’re paying attention

Question 11

Ecological validity

Answer 11

Research conditions are similar to real-world application. Gorilla at basketball game.

Question 12

What kind of system do we use to recognize faces?

Answer 12

Holistic

Gestalt

Question 13

Where does facial recognition happen?

Answer 13

Temporal cortex
Fusiform face area, lower portion of temporal cortex
Fusiform may be for recognizing areas of great expertise like cars

Question 14

What is face inversion effect?

Answer 14

We identify upright faces more accurately

Question 15

Four factors of speech perception

Answer 15

1. Boundaries
2. Pronunciation varies
3. Context fills in
4. Mouth cues

Question 16

What is coarticulation?

Answer 16

Mouth stays in shape it was while pronouncing previous phoneme, while preparing for next

Question 17

What is phonemic restoration?

Answer 17

Filling in phoneme using context

Question 18

What is the special mechanism approach?

Answer 18

We are born with specialized device that allows decoding of speech stimuli quicker than music etc.
Have phonetic module enabling perception of phonemes

Question 19

What is categorical perception part of special mechanism approach?

Answer 19

Either one sound or another when it’s between

Question 20

What is general mechanism approach?

Answer 20

We use same mechanisms to process speech and nonspeech

Favoured by current research