Outcome 1 - What influences a person's perception of the world? Flashcards
Students should be able to compare the sensations and perceptions of vision and taste, and analyse factors that may lead to the occurrence of perceptual distortions.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD
What are the eight steps?
- Identify the area of research and form a research aim.
- Collect information.
- Identify the research question and formulate a hypothesis.
- Design a research method to test the hypothesis.
- Collect and analyse the data.
- Draw a conclusion: accept or reject the hypothesis.
- Report findings.
- Test the conclusion.
What is an Independent Variable?
The variable that is manipulated by the experimenter who then measures resulting changes in the dependent variable.
E.g. Eating carrots a day will improve your eyesight, the IV would be eating carrots or not eating carrots.
What is an Dependent Variable?
The property which is measured in psychological research, to look for effects of the independent variable.
E.g. Eating carrots a day will improve you eyesight, the DV would be accuracy of eyesight.
What does Operationalisation mean?
Means that the variable is stated in terms that show how it is measured. E.g. age - operationalised as age in total months or IQ - operationalised as the score on a 40-item multiple-choice test
What does a hypothesis always begin with?
It is predicted that…
How do you accurately write a hypothesis?
Example: It is predicted that for adult drivers in Melbourne, an increase in blood alcohol level will cause a decrease in reaction speed.
What is an extraneous variable?
A variable other than the IV that could cause changes in the value of the DV.
What is Sensation?
refers to the processing or sensing our environment through touch, taste, sight, sound and smell. This information is sent to our brains in raw form where perception comes into play.
What is Perception?
Is the way we interpret these sensations and therefore makes sense of everything around us.
What are the five primary tastes?
- sweet
- bitter
- salty
- sour
- umami
What is Synaesthesia?
Concerns connections between the senses. The presentation of a stimulus from one sensory system automatically triggers a perception in a second sensory system. E.g. seeing a certain colour when hearing a sound, experiencing particular smells when hearing a word.
What is a visual illusion?
occurs when perception consistently differs from objective reality
What is the Ponzo Illusion?
When the upper horizontal line in each diagram is perceived to be longer than the lower horizontal line even though they are the same.
What is the Müller-Lyer Illusion?
Consists of two lines of equal length, each having opposite-shaped patterns on the ends. One line has a regular arrowheads and the other has inverted.
What is the Ames Room Illusion?
constructed in a trapezoidal shape, but is made to appear square when observed through a peephole.
What is Perceptual set?
- a predisposition to perceive stimuli in a specific way
- a predisposition to attend to only certain features or aspects of our field of view
Factors that influence perceptual set (sight):
- previous experience
- context
- motivation (if hungry, the sign FUEL AHEAD could look like FOOD AHEAD)
- emotion (depending on how we feel ourselves, we may perceive someone as crying when laughing or laughing when crying)
Factors that influence taste perception:
- genetics (sometimes it is a genetic thing if you dislike something)
- age (newborns prefer sweet taste)
- packaging and branding (vegemite tastes better than marmite
- how you are brought up (culture)
PERCEPTUAL CONSTANCIES
Size:
refers to the fact that we maintain a constant perception of an object’s size, even though the size of the image on the retina alters as the object moves nearer or further from us. E.g looking a friend from a distance, we know that she is still the same size no matter where she is standing.
PERCEPTUAL CONSTANCIES
Shape:
refers to the fact that an object is perceived to maintain its known shape despite the changing perspective from which is observed. E.g. door opens, looks like a different shape when opened but we know its still rectangular.
GESALT PRICIPLES
Figure-ground:
figure and ground are separated by an imagined contour (line).
GESALT PRICIPLES
Closure:
occurs when we perceive an object as being a whole, despite it actually being incomplete.
GESALT PRICIPLES
Similarity:
is when the individual parts of a pattern are similar. E.g. in size shape or colour. We tend to group them together.