Cognition & Perception Flashcards
sensation
Sensory signals reaching the detectors in our bodies, reaching our brain (ie. light waves hitting retina, sound waves hitting eardrum)
perception
- Process by which the brain selects, organizes, and interprets the sensory information that it receives from the sense organs (internal representation of what you’re sensing); influenced by interpretation
- We use our prior experience to influence what we’re seeing, especially when it comes to ambiguous stimuli (ex. Dog made of dots → if you don’t see dogs often, you’re less likely to see a dog in the dots)
- Therefore, our cultural experience should matter too
why are we unsettled by upside-down faces?
because we don’t have much visual experience with upside-down faces → our experience influences perception
perceptual differences influenced by culture
- Susceptibility to optical illusions
- Pictorial depth perception
- Object vs. field focus
perceptual differences influenced by culture: susceptibility to optical illusions
- Optical illusions reflect different aspects of physical environment -> differences in physical environment lead to differences in susceptibility
- How we see the world is developed through experiences and learning
- Our brain has to try to figure out how to interpret 3d despite info projected onto our eyes in 2d using various cues
- Ex. Muller-Lyer illusion → carpentered world hypothesis; Horizontal-vertical illusion
Horizontal-Vertical Illusion
- vertical line looks to be longer than the horizontal line, but they’re exactly the same length
- Explanation: Foreshortening hypothesis → higher susceptibility for people who reside in more “open” environments (ie. flat, open plains; wide, open vistas) –> perceive vertical lines as long distances
perceptual differences influenced by culture: pictorial depth perception
- Western education plays big role in interpreting pictures (ex. Hunter-gazelle picture)
- This may be due to Western education’s focus on teaching children to perceive 2d images as 3d images
- Western education’s promotion of sensitivity to depth cues also evident in perception of things like “impossible figures” (ex. 2-pronged trident)
- – More western education = more difficulty interpreting figure → requires much more time copying the figure
- perceiving 3d images from 2d images requires sensitivity to various depth cues
- cultural differences exist in producing perspective on a 2d medium
perceiving 3d images from 2d images: depth cues
- Relative size of objects: objects that are larger tend to be perceived as closer to us than smaller objects
- Object superimposition: objects can overlap each other; one on top is closer to us
- Vertical position: objects that are closer to us tend to be lower in our visual field
- A linear perspective: using a linear perspective when looking at paintings (ex. When looking at a road, receding parallel lines disappear onto horizon line)
- A texture gradient: Objects that are closer to us have more texture, detail, resolution than objects that are farther from us
cultural differences in producing perspective on a 2d medium: European vs. Asian art
- European art: “one point perspective” (in perspective; vanishing point; meaningful proportions → difference in size is proportional to distance)
- Asian art: “oblique perspective” (not in perspective; no vanishing point; proportions aren’t meaningful; like someone is looking down on the scene and flattening it)
18th century Japanese art started to show vanishing points etc. because of exposure to Europeans and their method of producing perspective
perceptual differences influenced by culture: focus on object vs. field
- People from different cultural environments tend to differ on focusing on focal object versus the field around the focal object
- Ex. in “rod and frame task” done in class (is line in middle straight or tilted?)
- Associated with their place on the spectrum of thinking styles: holistic vs. analytic
focus on object vs. field: holistic thinkers
- perceiving scenes and situations as integrated whole, paying more attention to the context (ex. If someone tells you a story, they’ll go off on tangents because it’s all connected)
- Associated with field dependence: tendency to attend to the context that surrounds focal objects and relationships among objects in the environment
- Associated with collectivism/interdependence
focus on object vs. field: analytic thinkers
- perceiving objects focusing on specific elements rather than contexts, and use fixed abstract rules to explain and predict behaviour
- Associated with field independence: tendency to separate focal object from its environment and attend to attributes of the focal object
- Associated with individualism/independence
comparing art from different cultures: horizons
- European/Western paintings: horizons about ⅓ of the way up on the canvas
- East Asian paintings: horizons about ½ of the way up on the canvas
- Higher horizons allow more space to show relations and connections between more objects -> more indicative of holistic thinkers
horizons in art study
- researchers asked European-Canadian and East Asian participants to draw a picture including elements like a horizon, house, person, tree, river, etc.
- Results: East Asian participants had higher horizons and also added more details/elements (ie. stones lining the path, farmland, etc.) than European-Canadian participants
3 things impacted by analytic vs. holistic thinking
- attributions: attributing behaviour to internal vs. external causes
- dialecticism: how we perceive patterns and relationships in the world
- categorization: sorting things into categories
3 things impacted by analytic vs. holistic thinking: attributions
- Analytic thinking style: more focus on internal, dispositional attributions
- More likely to make Fundamental Attribution Error
- Holistic thinking style: more focus on external, contextual information, making situational attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error
tendency to put too much focus on someone’s internal dispositions as attributions for one’s behaviour, underestimating impact of external/contextual factors, despite explicit external constraints → associated with analytic thinking style
Dispositional vs. Situational attributions in India vs. US
- When children are young, there is no significant difference between the types of attributions made
- As people aged, Indians made increasingly more situational attributions (and vice versa for US) → demonstrates that socialization seems to be important driving force in people’s attributions
3 things impacted by analytic vs. holistic thinking: categorizations
- Analytic thinking style: focus on internal traits and dispositions → leads to tendency to categorize objects based on common traits (aka: taxonomic categorization)
- Holistic thinking style: focus on relationships between objects → leads to tendency to categorize objects based on their connections and relationships (aka: thematic characterization)
study: categorization in analytic vs. holistic thinkers
- asked participants to categorize 2/3 objects and explain why (ie. man, woman, baby)
- Analytic thinking style: grouping based on shared characteristic (ie. grouping man and woman together because they’re both adults)
- Commonly seen in US
- Holistic thinking style: grouping based on relationships (ie. grouping woman and baby together because the mother would need to take care of the baby)
- Commonly seen in China and in Indigenous groups
3 things impacted by analytic vs. holistic thinking: dialecticism –> views towards contractions
- Traditional laws of thought:
- No tolerance for contradiction:
- – Law of identity: A = A; “whatever is, is”
- – Ex. Apple is a fruit
- Law of non-contradiction:
- – Only one can be true, not both → mutually exclusive; “nothing can both be and not be”
- – Ex. Apple is a pen, Apple is not a pen → they contradict each other, so only one can be true
- Law of excluded middle:
- – No third option/alternative → collectively exhaustive; “everything must either be or not be”
- – Ex. Apple is a pen, Apple is not a pen → they contradict each other, so only one can be true, and no other options exist
3 things impacted by analytic vs. holistic thinking: dialecticism –> naive dialecticism
- tolerance for contradiction
- East Asian tradition has relatively higher acceptance for contradiction
- based on 3 principles: principle of change, principle of contradiction, principle of relationship
naive dialecticism: 3 principles (name and describe)
- Principle of change: Reality is a changing process; not static; fluid; no fixed state that allows for something to constantly be
- Principle of contradiction: Because change is constant, contradiction is constant; opposite poles complement and depend on each other for existence (ie. you can be both a happy and unhappy person)
- Principle of relationship: Because change and contradiction are constant, everything is related, and cannot be isolated into independent elements (ie. the butterfly effect)
economic inequality (and its impacts)
- Difference in people’s economic well-being within a group
- influences life expectancy, math and literacy, infant mortality, homicides, teen births, obesity, mental illness, imprisonment, child well-being etc. → higher income inequality = higher social problems
2 ways economic inequality is measured
- Income inequality: uneven distribution of income within a population
- Ex. in US, top 10% of rich people own almost 50% of country’s income
- Has been steadily increasing over the past few decades
- Wealth inequality: uneven distribution of assets within a population (ie. income, property, cars, businesses)
- Ex. In US and Europe, top 1% have 20-30% of wealth; top 10% have 7-80% of wealth
Gaps in knowledge and perception
- Knowledge gap exits between what we have and what we think we have AND between what we have and what we think we should have
- effect persists regardless of gender, country, SES, etc.
- Applies to our knowledge/perception of inequality
what is authoritarianism, and how does it relate to income inequality?
- authoritarianism: obedience to authority
- Countries high on authoritarianism display various characteristics:
- Intolerance of minorities (ie. ethnic, religious)
- Support for more aggressive use of military force
- More likely to condone illegal government behaviour
- Greater the income inequality in a society, greater the power differential (more money = more power) –> greater the experience with power difference, greater its acceptance and perceived naturalness
inequality and democratic political engagement
- More acceptance of authoritarianism → more fatalism about one’s situation (feeling like it won’t change)
- Less political engagement amongst the poor (less political interest, less political discussion, less electoral participation) → greater political inequality
Socioeconomic status (SES)
- Different SES leads to differences in behaviour and psychological tendencies
- People with lower SES are more likely to engage in behaviours that are perceived to exacerbate their situation (ex. Having more children, making non-optimal financial decisions, harmful health behaviours)
- Rather than pathologizing these behaviours or telling these people to make better decisions, we should look at the underlying causes
impact of high vs. low SES on behaviour/psychological tendencies
- High SES more likely to have:
- Independent self-construal
- Dispositional attributions
- High sense of personal control
- More unethical behaviour
- Low SES more likely to have:
- Interdependent self-construal
- Situational attributions
- More empathy and everyday helping behaviour
- Less engagement with and benefit from educational and occupational opportunities
resource scarcity (ex. low SES): how does it impact us?
- When we face resource scarcity, like low SES:
- We become more present-oriented, less future-oriented, more pessimistic about future than those with higher resources
- We have greater external mortality risk (ex. Workplace accidents in risky jobs, health issues from environment they live in)
- We have greater impulsivity; drawn to behaviours that are immediately beneficial
bandwidth
- how poverty influences our mindset and behaviour
- 2 parts:
- Cognitive capacity (ability to hold onto info, make decisions)
- Executive control (ability to inhibit behaviours)
- Focus on lack of resources is involuntary, captures attention, and impedes bandwidth
- Not about inherent capacity, but immediate capacity
cognitive capacity and emotional control: car repair study (basics)
- imagine your car has trouble - 2 conditions: will cost $300 to fix vs. $3000 to fix; participants assigned to condition, then completed tasks of cognitive capacity and executive control
- Cognitive capacity: measured using Raven’s progressive matrices: look at ability to detect patterns; “culture-free” test of intelligence
- Executive control: Lab task - if you see a heart, press button on the same side; if you see a flower, press button on the opposite side → measure of executive control because you have to inhibit primary responses/instincts
cognitive capacity and emotional control: car repair study (results)
rich people performed equally well on the tasks regardless of what condition they were in, whereas poor people performed worse on Raven’s matrices and executive control task if they were in the $3000 repair condition → yields a difference of about 13-14 IQ points (almost 1 SD)
cognitive capacity and emotional control: Sugarcane farmers study (basics)
- Sugarcane farmers experience scarcity pre-harvest, but no scarcity post-harvest
- Were taken through modified stroop task to test executive control both pre-harvest and post-harvest
cognitive capacity and emotional control: Sugarcane farmers study (results)
they performed worse at Raven’s matrices and executive control tasks pre-harvest than they did post-harvest (took them longer and made more mistakes) → yields a difference of 9-10 IQ points (almost 1 SD) → suggests that resource scarcity takes away mental capacities
