Chapter 9 - Perceptual distortions

Question 1

Fallibility

Answer 1

the quality of being prone to error or experiencing difficulties in judgement

Question 2

Perceptual distortion

Answer 2

an error in the judgement or interpretation of sensory stimuli

Question 3

Visual illusion

Answer 3

the perception of a visual stimulus that conflicts with how it is in physical reality

Question 4

Agnosia

Answer 4

a disorder involving the loss or impairment of the ability to recognise familiar stimuli through the use of one or more senses, despite the senses functioning normally otherwise

Question 5

Visual agnosia

Answer 5

usually occurs as a result of a brain lesion
Apperceptive visual agnosia:
- difficulty perceiving visual info
- intact mental understanding of what objects look like
- inability identify objects caused by difficulty perceiving form or visual elements
- otherwise normal vision

Associative visual agnosia:
- difficulty identifying objects
- no difficulty in perception, can identify individual visual element
- identifying difficulties cos unable to link prior experience to object
- otherwise normal vision

Question 6

Supertasters

Answer 6

individuals who have significantly low thresholds for taste stimuli and an unusually high number of taste buds

Question 7

Miraculin

Answer 7

a type of protein extracted from the ‘miracle berry’ which alters taste perception in humans

Question 8

Synaesthesia

Answer 8

a perceptual phenomenon characterised by the experience of unusual perceptions in one sensory system after another sensory system has been activated

Question 9

Spatial neglect

Answer 9

an inability to perceive, report, or orient sensory information located within one side of space