Cognitive Psychology - Visual processing Flashcards
What is bottom-up processing?
Processing that is directly linked influenced by environmental stimuli
What is top-down processing?
Stimulus processing that is influenced by the individual’s past experience and expectations, rather than simply by the stimulus itself
Expectations and knowledge affects perception and recognition
What is serial processing?
Processing in which one task is completed before the next one starts (e.g. learning to drive a car, when this becomes familiar it becomes parallel processing)
What is parallel processing?
Processing in which two or more cognitive processes occur at the same time (e.g. driving a car)
What is sensation?
Physical stimulus of environment which is e.g. electromagnetic waves -> waves go to neurons
What is perception?
We are aware that we have seen something.
It is how our nervous system processes the information from the sensation
The filtering is done by thalamus which then goes on to the cortex (auditory)
What is recognition?
Putting the stimulus together with meaning, use perception to recognise.
What is Gregory’s theory?
Recognition is affected by cognitive processes, such as thinking, reasoning and memory.
It is based on individual experience, we perceive the world differently and behave / react different.
What are some of the issues with Gregory’s theory?
Perceptual development - e.g shade / light affects colours, close/far away objects differ in size
Culture - what we know affects what we see
Ecological validity - where is the thing being seen?
Illusions (eg why don’t we see the 3 colours of the cube to be the same colour even when we are shown that three colours are the same? Why do we continue to see the illusion?)
what is the distal stimulus?
The object
What is the proximal stimulus?
When light is reflected from the object to the back of the eye (retina)
What is transduction?
When energy is switched from one form to the other. Eg light energy from object is transduced into chemical energy to send to the brain via optical nerve. Brain can only use electro-chemical energy
How does recognition relate to action?
We change our behaviour based on our recognition of the stimulus
What are the steps of vision?
Environmental (distal) stimulus - sensation
Light is reflected and transformed
Receptor process (proximal stimulus)
Neural processing - light energy is converted to electro-chemical energy to go to brain via optical nerve
Perception - neurons process the information from the sensation
Recognition - putting together the stimulus with meaning - TOP DOWN OR BOTTOM UP
Action - reaction
