Introduction: Philosophy, Psychology & Neuroscience of Perception

Question 1

What is sensation?

Answer 1

awareness of a physical stimulus through the senses

-receiving sensory data

Question 2

What is perception?

Answer 2

the ability to apprehend, or interpret sensory data

*perception brings our knowledge of the world to organise the raw data of sensation

Question 3

What are the neural requirements for sensation and perception?

Answer 3

• sensory receptors
• axonal projections to CNS
• central pathways through CNS
• leading to specific sensory area of cerebral cortex
• and on to ‘higher’ association areas of cortex

Question 4

What is naive realism?

Answer 4

belief that we perceive the world precisely as it is via the senses
-direct perception

Question 5

What is indirect realism?

Answer 5

the theory that we do not and cannot perceive the world directly the way it is, but know only our ideas and interpretations of the way the world is

Question 6

What are we actually doing when we perceive something?

Answer 6

Constructing a representation of it

Question 7

What is the representational model of the mind?

Answer 7

Outer world → Physics: mass, energy, molecules

Inner world → Mental states: sights, sounds etc.

Question 8

What is the mind-body problem?

Answer 8

the issue of how the mind is related to the brain and body

Question 9

What is dualism?

Answer 9

the idea that the mind and body are two distinct entities that interact

Question 10

What is materialism also known as?

Answer 10

Physicalism

Question 11

What is functionalism?

Answer 11

the mind is what the brain does

Question 12

What is empiricism?

Answer 12

the theory that all knowledge comes from sensory experience, ordered by learning associations between experiences

Question 13

What is nativism?

Answer 13

the theory that the way we organise experience depends on innate knowledge (born with certain innate traits)

Question 14

What is perceptual processing?

Answer 14

Organising or interpreting information taken in through the senses

Question 15

What is bottom-up perceptual processing?

Answer 15

perceptual processing of sensory inputs from the senses that works upwards until a representation of the object is formed in our minds

• perceptions built from sensory input alone
• feedforward in neural terms

Question 16

What is top-down perceptual processing?

Answer 16

perceptual processing of sensory input that begins with the most general information and moves to more specific information, and is influenced by other cognitive factors, memory, expectation, attention, implicit knowledge
-brain applies what it knows to fill in the blanks and anticipate what’s next

• sensory input influenced by other things
• feedback in neural terms

Question 17

What is materialism?

Answer 17

the idea that the mind is the brain, or, arises from the physical activity of the brain

*there is no reality but physical reality