Chapter 6- Perception Flashcards
Selective attention
At any moment our awareness focuses on only a limited aspect of all we experience
Perception
The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events
Cocktail party effect
The ability to attend to only one voice among many.
Inattentional blindness
Failing to see visual objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.
Change blindness
Inattentional blindness (gorilla in room, directions)
Change deafness
Inattentional deafness (voice changes during a reading of list of words)
Choice blindness
Inattentional blindness (choosing the face you didn’t pick)
Choice-blindness blindness
Exhibiting denial (blindness) to falling victim to a hypothetical experiment.
Pop-out phenomenon
When a distinct stimulus draws attention (not a choice) (seeing a happy face in a crowd of sad faces)
Illusions
Reveal the ways we normally organize and interpret our sensations.
Visual capture
The tendency for vision to dominate other senses.
Gestalt
An organized whole. Psychologists use our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.
Figure-ground
The organization of visual fields (the figures) that stand out form their surroundings (ground). (Arrows/men going up the stairs).
Grouping
The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into convenient groups.
Proximity
We group nearby figures together. We don’t see 6 separate lines, but 3 sets of 2.
Similarity
We group together figures that are similar. Triangles and circles are vertical columns of similar shapes, not horizontal different shapes.
Continuity
Perceiving a smooth continuos pattern versus non continuous. Alternating semicircles are seen as a wavy and straight line.
Connectedness
Because they are uniform and linked, we perceive the two dots and the line between them as s single unity.
Closure
We fill the gaps to create a complete who object. (House)
Depth perception
The ability to see objects in 3D although the images are 2D. Allows us to judge distance. Optical illusions
Visual cliff
A laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.
Binocular cues
Depth cues, such as retina disparity and convergence, that depends on the use of two eyes.
Retinal disparity
A binocular cue for perceiving depth. By comparing images from the two eyeballs, the brain computes distance. The greater the disparity, the closer the object.
Convergence
A binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object. The greater the inward strain,the closer the object.
Monocular cues
Depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone.
Relative size
If two objects are similar in size, yet one looks smaller, the object will seem farther away.
Interposition
If an object blocks our view of another, it seems closer.
Relative clarity
Hazy objects will be perceived as farther away.
Texture gradient
Big textures seem closer than smaller ones.
Relative height
High objects are farther away (tall glasses look fuller)
Relative motion
Stable objects appear to move (like being in a car). The nearer the object, the faster it moves.
Linear perspective
Converging lines add distance
Light and shadow
Near objects are lighter. Shadows depths come from us knowing that light comes from above.
Phi phenomenon
An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink in and off in quick succession.
Stroboscopic movement
The optical illusion of perceiving continuos motion between spread objects viewed rapidly in succession.
Perceptual constancy
Perceiving objects as unchanging (having constant light, color, shape, etc. ) even as illumination and retinal images change.
Perceptual adaptation
In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or inverted visual field.
Context effects
Psychology that describes the influence of environmental factors on ones perception of a stimulus.
Perceptual set
A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.
Human factors psychologists
A branch of psychology that explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be made safe and easy use.
Extrasensory perception
Reception of information not gained through physical senses but sensed with the mind.
Parapsychology
A field of study concerned with the investigation of paranormal and psychic phenomena.
Schemas
A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.
