Chapter 3: Perception

Question 1

Difference between bottom-up vs top-down processing

Answer 1

Bottom up
- perception comes from stimuli in the environment
- parts are identifies and put together, then recognition occurs

Top down
- construct perceptions using information based on expectations

Question 2

Describe Helmholtz’s Theory of Unconscious Inference

Answer 2

Likelihood principle : perceive object would most likely cause the pattern of stimulation

Occlusion heuristic: partially covered by a smaller occluding object, the larger one is seen as continuing behind the object
(top down processes help interpret signal)

Approach suggests that perception is influenced by our knowledge of regularities in the environment

Question 3

Describe the Gestalt psychologists’ principles of perceptual organization. Be able to identify examples of these principles (PPGS)

Answer 3

1. Law of Pragnanz: individual organize experience in simple conscise, symmetrical and complete manner

PPGS: Proximity, Pragnanz, Good continuation, Similarity

Question 4

What are examples of physical regularities in the environment that likely affect perception?

Answer 4

regularly occurring physical properties of the environment

oblique effect: biased to perceive vertical and horizontal orientations because those are more frequent than other orientations

Question 5

What are examples of semantic regularities in the environment that likely affect perception?
How does they relate to schemas?
How does perceptual sets affect perception?

Answer 5

Semantic regularities: characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different scenes

Schemas: Individual’s knowledge about what is involved in a particular experience

The surrounding environment or situation can create expectations that influence perception.

Question 6

Describe the Recognition by Component Theory (Biederman, 1978) of object perception.

Answer 6

-3D images identification
through analysis of spatial relationships among configurations

Problem: do not account for color/texture/ small details used to differentiate objects

Question 7

Differentiate between Wernicke’s and Broca’s Aphasias.
What brain areas are typically damaged to result in such disorders?

Answer 7

Wernicke
-temporal lobe
-Aphasia: disturb language comprehension (unds)

Broca
-frontal lobe
-language production impairments (talk)

Question 8

What is experience-dependent plasticity? Describe the Gauthier and colleague (1999) experiment using greebles to demonstrate this phenomenon.

Answer 8

-mechansims that cause and organism’s neurons to develop so they respond best to the type of simulation pervasive in the environment

Question 9

Differentiate between the “What” and “Where” streams of visual processing

Answer 9

What (ventral) stream
-identifying an object
-perception pathway

Where/ How (Dorsal)
-idenfy object’s LOCATION
-action pathway

Question 10

What are mirror neurons?

Answer 10

Neurons that respond the same way when actually performing an act and when observing someone else performing the act