Chapter 3: Perception and Mental Imagery Flashcards
Perception
the ability to recognize and interpret information from the senses
(T or F) The very act of perceiving involves making sense of the raw stimulation conveyed by our senses
True
Blind Spot
Each of our eyes have it; its toward the outside edges of our vision, where the optic nerve passes through to convey visual signals to the brain. We don’t notice this gap in our visual experience of the world because our minds fill-in the missing information
Model Completion
Your view of an illusory object is not obstructed, and where there is no objective boundary between the illusory object and the background
Amodal Completion
Where you seem to perceive an object despite an apparently obstructed view
(T or F) Perception is a cognitive act
True
(T or F) What you consciously perceive is NOT heavily shaped by what your mind chooses to see, hear, taste, feel, or smell
False
What was George Berkley’s contribution?
“To be is to be perceived”, meaning that an object doesn’t exist if your mind doesn’t perceive it.
Bottom-up processing
The sensory input, such as an image, coming through the eyes and falling on the retina, or sounds impinging on the ears, stimulating the cochlea
Retina
the light-sensitive part of our eyes
In vision, light reflected by objects in the world passes through our eyes and stimulates a collection of more than 100 million _____ on the retina at the back of each eye
Photoreceptors
The center of the retina, known as the _____, contains densely packed photoreceptors known as _____, which are differentially sensitive to wavelengths corresponding to different colors.
- Fovea
- Cones
(T or F) The retina also contains extremely light-sensitive photoreceptors known as rods, which come in handy when light is very dim but which do not distinguish among colors
True
Sensation
The input for perception - the stimulation of the sensory receptors
Transduction
The process by which physical signals from the environment are translated into neural signals that the brain can use
Through transduction, signals are projected all the way to the _____, which is located at the ______
Primary visual cortex
Back of the brain
(T or F) The primary visual cortex is specialized for the most rudimentary visual processing, such as determining the orientations and spatial frequencies of light and dark patches in the visual world.
True
Feedforward System
the hierarchical account of the flow of visual information processing
Top-down information
the knowledge and expectations that influence and enhance our interpretation of sensory input
What 2 things shape perception, and what makes predictions in perception?
- CONTEXT SHAPES PERCEPTION
- EXPERIENCE SHAPES PERCEPTION
- VISUAL BRAIN MAKES PREDICTIONS
Predictive coding
The visual brain seems to operate by making predictions about what input the eyes are about to receive
Cognitively Impenetrable
those who argue that perceptual processing proceeds without influence from “high-level” cognition - for example, beliefs, knowledge, or motivation that suggest this
Object Segmentation
Visually assigning the elements of a scene to separate objects and backgrounds
Figure-ground organization
When the boundary between an object and its background is clear, and it’s not always evident which side of the boundary belongs to the object (or figure) and which side of the boundary belongs to the background
How do people decide which side of a shared boundary is the figure and which is the ground?
According to current models of figure-ground organization, the sides falling on either side of a shared boundary activate representations that compete with each other for “figure status”, with the winning representations inhibiting neural activity corresponding to the losing representation
What are the rules researchers discovered that resolve the competition in figure-ground organization?
- Rule of enclosure
- Rule of symmetry
- Rule of convexity
- Rule of meaningfulness