MODULE 3 UNIT 1: VISUAL PERCEPTION Flashcards
The set of processes by which we recognize, organize, and make sense of the sensations we receive from environmental stimuli
Perception
Object in the external world
Distal object
When information is absorbed by the sensory receptor (e.g., cells in the retina absorb light waves)
Proximal stimulation
Event/pattern; stimulus (e.g., light waves) that comes into contact with the appropriate sensory receptor
Informational medium
Event/pattern; stimulus (e.g., light waves) that comes into contact with the appropriate sensory receptor
Informational medium
_________ occurs when sensory receptors DETECT SENSORY STIMULI, while _________ involves the ORGANIZATION, INTERPRETATION, and CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE of an individual’s sensations.
Sensation; Perception
Is the statement below an example of sensation or perception?
Light enters your eyes and stimulates the photoreceptors (rods and cones) in your retina.
Sensation
Is the statement below an example of sensation or perception?
Pressure and temperature receptors in your skin are stimulated when you touch a cold metal surface.
Sensation
Is the statement below an example of sensation or perception?
You try to identify if the taste is sweet, salty, bitter, sour, or umami, and you recognize that you are eating chocolate cake.
Perception
Is the statement below an example of sensation or perception?
You recognize the sound as music, distinguish between different instruments, and remember the melody of your favorite song.
Perception
Focuses on the qualities of stimulation.
Sensation
Focuses on identity and form, pattern, and movement.
Perception
Occurs as information to be gathered is used to serve further goals.
Cognition
Identify if the question below reflects sensation, perception, or cognition.
Is the scent of this flower stronger than the scent of the candle?
Sensation
Explanation: The question focuses on the olfactory intensity of different scents.
Identify if the question below reflects sensation, perception, or cognition.
Is the vibration of this phone stronger than the vibration of your previous phone?
Sensation
Explanation: The question compares the intensity of tactile vibrations from different devices.
Identify if the question below reflects sensation, perception, or cognition.
Is that person in the photograph your friend from school?
Perception
Explanation: The question involves recognizing and identifying a familiar face.
Identify if the question below reflects sensation, perception, or cognition.
Can you identify the melody being played on the piano?
Perception
Explanation: The question involves recognizing a sequence of musical notes as a familiar melody.
Identify if the question below reflects sensation, perception, or cognition.
Is the person walking towards us or away from us?
Perception
Explanation: The question asks about the direction of the person’s movement.
Identify if the question below reflects sensation, perception, or cognition.
Is this information reliable for writing my research paper?
Cognition
Explanation: This question involves evaluating the credibility of sources to ensure accurate and trustworthy content. (Since cognition happens when the information being processed is used to SERVE FURTHER GOALS, this question reflects cognition as the goal is to evaluate the credibility of sources.)
Identify if the question below reflects sensation, perception, or cognition.
Is this the right key for this lock?
Cognition
Explanation: The question requires matching the physical characteristics of the key to the lock to achieve the goal of unlocking something.
Refers to the way our senses
adjust to different stimuli.
Sensory adaptation
The psychological phenomenon that explains why we never can experience through vision, hearing, taste, smell, or touch exactly the same set of stimulus properties we have experienced before.
Sensory adaptation
A German word which means ‘complete field’ and refers to an
unstructured visual field.
Ganzfeld
The psychological phenomenon that explains the situation presented below:
Staring at a completely white computer screen or projection screen for an extended period can cause the eyes to adapt, leading to a loss of visual details and a perception of a gray or white field.
Ganzfeld Effect
Explanation: The Ganzfeld effect refers to the phenomenon where prolonged exposure to a uniform, unstructured visual field leads to a cessation of perception and the experience of a gray field.
The path the visual information takes from it entering the human perceptual system through the eyes to it being completely processed.
Pathway
Research shows that the _______________ has separate neural pathways for processing different aspects of the same stimuli.
Cerebral cortex
Dorsal pathway: _________ lobe; Ventral pathway: __________ lobe
Parietal; Temporal
What are the two visual pathways?
Dorsal and Ventral
Also called the WHERE PATHWAY and is responsible for processing location and motion information.
Dorsal pathway
Also called the WHAT PATHWAY
because it is mainly responsible for processing the color, shape, and identity of visual stimuli
Ventral Pathway
Identify which visual pathway is responsible in processing the information given below:
Catching a ball
Dorsal Pathway
Explanation: When you see a ball flying through the air and reach out to catch it, the dorsal pathway helps you track the ball’s motion and position your hand in the right place to make the catch.
Identify which visual pathway is responsible in processing the information given below:
Recognizing animals
Ventral Pathway
Explanation: When you see a dog running in the park and identify it as a specific breed, the ventral pathway processes the visual details like the dog’s shape, size, and markings.
The hypothesis which argues that two pathways refer not to what things are and to where they are, but rather, to what they are and to how they function. In addition, this hypothesis also argues that spatial information about where something is located in space is always present in visual information processing.
What/How Hypothesis
This pathway is located in the dorsal stream and controls movements in relation to the objects that have been identified through the “what” pathway.
How Pathway
This best supports the What/How Hypothesis.
Processing deficits
Explanation: There are deficits that impair people’s ability to recognize what they see, and there are distinct deficits that impair people’s ability to reach for what they see (how).
A data-driven approach to perception which states that perception starts with the stimuli whose appearance you take in through your eye.
Bottom-up Theories
The four main bottom-up theories of form and pattern perception
- Direct perception
- Template theories
- Feature theories
- Recognition-by components theory
A bottom-up theory which states that the information in our sensory receptors, including the sensory context, is all we need to perceive anything.
Gibson’s Theory of Direct Perception
A concept under Gibson’s Theory of Direct Perception, which states that the environment supplies us with all the information we need for perception: we do not need higher cognitive processes or anything else to mediate between our sensory experiences and our perceptions.
Ecological perception
The theory at play in interpersonal situations when we try to make sense of others’ emotions and intentions (i.e. recognize emotion in faces).
Gibson’s Theory of Direct Perception
A type of bottom-up theory which suggests that we have stored in our minds myriad sets of templates.
Template Theory
These are highly-detailed models for patterns we might potentially recognize. We compare the pattern stimulus to these models in memory until a match is found.
Templates
A chunk-based theory that suggests that expertise is attained by acquiring chunks of knowledge in long-term memory that can later be accessed for fast recognition.
Template Theory
The disadvantage with template theory
For template matching, ONLY AN EXACT MATCH WILL DO, and therefore poses a problem to imperfect matches.
A type of bottom-up theory which suggests that we attempt to match features of a pattern to features stored in memory, rather than to match a whole pattern to a template or a prototype.
Feature-Matching Theories
A type of feature-matching theory which states that metaphorical “demons” with specific duties receive and analyze the features of a stimulus.
Pandemonium Model
Process of the Pandemonium Model
- Image demons: They receive the retinal image and transmit it to “feature demons”.
- Feature demons: These demons detect matches between the stimulus and specific features. Matches are then communicated to the next level, the cognitive demons.
- Cognitive demons: They identify patterns stored in memory that match the features noticed by the feature demons.
- Decision demon: Listens to the cognitive demons and makes a decision based on which cognitive demon is shouting the most frequently, indicating the strongest match with stored patterns.
Small-scale or detailed aspects of a given pattern
Local Features
Features that give a form to the overall shape of a given pattern
Global Features
In this theory, when participants were required to identify stimuli at the global level, whether the local features matched the global one did not matter.
Global Precedence Effect
In this theory, when identifying the “small” local letters, the response is quicker if global features agreed with the local ones.
Global Precedence Effect
In this theory, it is more challenging to identify local (small) Ss combining to form a global (big) H instead of identifying local (small) Hs combining to form a global (big) H.
Global Precedence Effect
In this theory, when letters are more widely spaced, participants more quickly identify the local features of the individual letters than the global ones, and the local features interfere with the global recognition in cases of contradictory stimuli.
Local Precedence Effect
In this theory, when the letters are close together at the local level, people have problems identifying the local stimuli (small letters) if they are inconsistent with the global stimulus (big letter).
Local Precedence Effect
A type of bottom-up theory which explains our ability to perceive 3-D objects with the help of simple geometric shapes called geons (for geometrical ions)
Recognition-by-Components (RBC) Theory
A type of bottom-up theory which explains why we quickly recognize objects by observing their edges and then decomposing the objects into geons, which can also be recomposed into alternative arrangements.
Recognition-by-Components (RBC) Theory
An approach to perception, which states that perception is driven by high-level cognitive processes, existing knowledge, and the prior expectations that influence perception.
Top-down Theory
These theories work their way down to considering the sensory data, such as
the perceptual stimulus, as the perceiver builds (constructs) a cognitive understanding (perception) of a stimulus
Top-down Theory
In this approach to perception, concepts of the perceiver and his or her cognitive processes influence what he or she sees.
Top-down Theory
Higher-order thinking plays an important role in
perception
Intelligent Perception
Three things where percepts (object of perception) are based.
- What we sense (the sensory data)
- What we know (knowledge stored in memory)
- What we can infer (using high-level cognitive processes).
A concept supported by top-down processing, which influences of the surrounding environment on perception. This also helps us to be able to recognize letters in many different fonts.
Context Effects
A concept supported by top-down processing, where objects presented in certain configurations are easier to recognize than the objects presented in isolation, even if the objects in the configurations are more complex than those in isolation.
Configural-superiority Effect
A concept supported by top-down processing, where a target line that forms a part of a drawing of a 3-D object is identified more accurately than a target that forms a part of a disconnected 2- D pattern.
Object Superiority Effect
A concept supported by top-down processing, which indicates that when people are presented with strings of letters, it is easier for them to identify a single letter if the string makes sense and forms a word instead of being just a nonsense sequel of letters.
Word Superiority Effect
A disadvantage of top-down position
Extreme top-down position would drastically underestimate the importance of sensory data
A disadvantage of bottom-up position
An extreme bottom-up position would not allow for any influence of past experience or knowledge on perception
Three basic orientations in perceiving objects and forms
- Viewer-centered representation
- Object-centered representation
- Landmark-centered representation
An orientation in perceiving objects and forms, where the individual stores the way the object looks to him or her: what matters is the object’s appearance to the viewer.
Viewer-centered representation
An orientation in perceiving objects and forms, where an individual stores a representation of the object, independent of its appearance to the viewer.
Object-centered representation
An orientation in perceiving objects and forms, where information is characterized by its relation to a well-known or prominent item
Landmark-centered representation
A system for recognizing patterns, where individuals recognize parts of objects and assemble these parts into wholes.
Feature Analysis System
A system for recognizing patterns, where individuals recognize larger configurations.
Configurational System
True or False
People have more trouble recognizing parts of faces than whole faces.
True
This brain area responds intensely when we look at faces but not when we look at other objects.
Fusiform gyrus
According to this theory, the fusiform gyrus is activated when one examines items with which one has visual expertise.
Expert individuation hypothesis
Inability to recognize and identify objects or people
Agnosia
Inability to recognize faces, including one’s own
Prosopagnosia
Normal visual fields, yet act blindly; perceives only one stimulus at a time—single word or object
Simultagnosia
An impairment in the ability to use the visual system to guide movement; cannot use vision to guide movement and therefore experience difficulty in reaching for items.
Optic ataxia
