Gregory's thoery of perception Flashcards
What is Gregory’s theory of perception?
He believes that we use past experiences to interpret the world around us. And that we make sense of the world around us by making a guess about what we are seeing.
Inference definition
A conclusion reached on the basis of past experience and or knowledge
A mistaken hypothesis
When our brain makes the wrong conclusion based on the evidence we have.
A perceptual hypothesis
Conclusions that tend to be the most probable based on what we are seeing
EVALUATION points for Gregory’s theory
Good support from research
Supported by unusual examples of perception (ambiguous information)
There are limitations to his theory
STRENGTH 1 (explained) - Good support from research
When non western ppts were shown the Muller-Lyer illusion they didn’t perceive one line as longer than the other.
WEAKNESS 1 (explained) - Supported by unusual examples of perception
His theory is supported by ppts looking at artificial 2D images however it doesn’t really tell us about perception in real life.
WEAKNESS 2 (explained) - Limitations to his thoery
His theory would suggest that there are many more differences in how we perceive things in different parts of the world, however it is actually quite similar. Research also shows that babies do have some perceptual abilities, so it not all just nurture.
Why is Gregory’s theory a TOP DOWN theory?
He looks at higher mental processes that have evolved through experience to explain perception.
