Lecture 3 Flashcards
Proximal stimulus
the physical energy from a stimulus as it directly stimulates a sense organ → transformation to come to our senses
Distal stimulus
the stimuli ‘out there’ in the environment → direct object we don’t “have access” to
An infinite number of objects could produce the same retinal image
How is perception different from recognition?
We can perceive something and describe it for how it looks or feels or whatever, but we may not be able to recognize what it is
visual form agnosia
inability to recognize common objects even though perception is totally intact
ex) a man who can’t recognize a glove, but can describe it
Knowledge
any information the perceiver brings to the perceptual process
bottom-up processing
data-based; processing based on the stimuli
top-down processing
knowledge-based; processing influenced by knowledge
Explain how bottom-up and top-down processing works for illusions
illusion
Bottom-up: just the image
Top-down: recognizing the “hidden” image
What is the Mary’s Room Thought Experiment?
It is about Mary, a scientist who knows everything about the visual system but lives in a black and white world. Would Mary learn anything knew if she suddenly encountered a red apple?
Qualia
subjective experience
What is an example of qualia?
perceiving a red apple! (is my red the same as your red?)
Criterion of falsifiability
hypothesis must be refutable on the basis of some physical observation to be considered scientific – but it alone is not sufficient to be considered science
falsifiable
can be proven false
not falsifiable
vague, hard to test
Empiricism
perspective that knowledge and evidence must be empirically based; depend on that which can be physically observed/measured
