Perception

Question 1

How do sensations become perceptions?

Answer 1

Stimulus energy —–> Sensory Receptors —–> Neural impulses—–> brain

Question 2

What is synaesthesia?

Answer 2

neurological condition in which one sense automatically triggers the experience of another sense.

Question 3

what is the most common form of synaesthesia?

Answer 3

Grapheme-color synaesthesia (sees colours for letters or numbers)

Question 4

What causes synaethesia?

Answer 4

• genetic component: 40% have a fam member with it

- due to cross wiring between sensory areas in the brain

Question 5

What is the most researched/understood perception?

Answer 5

vision

Question 6

What is the McGurk effect?

Answer 6

multi sensory illusion such that there is a change in auditory perception from visual perception (ba/fa)

Question 7

What is a common misunderstanding about vision?

Answer 7

there is a ray that exits the eye onto an object during sight

Question 8

What are the different steps of early visual processing?

Answer 8

1. Light waves enter the eye and are projected onto the retina
2. Photoreceptors in the retina convert light to electrical activity.

Rods: process low light levels for night vision

Cones: process high light levels for detail and colour vision

3. The electrical signal is sent to bipolar cells and then to the ganglion cells
4. The signal exits through the optic never to the brain.

Question 9

What is the retina?

Answer 9

thin layer of tissue at the back of the eye that forms an inverted image.

Question 10

Where are cones and rods mostly concentrated?

Answer 10

Cones: Fovea

Rods: periphery

Question 11

why do we not see our blindspot?

Answer 11

because of perceptual filling in

Question 12

What is contralateral representation?

Answer 12

left visual field is perceived via the right hemisphere

Right visual field: perceived via the left hemisphere

Question 13

What is the Primary visual cortex?

Answer 13

contains specialized regions that process particular visual attributes or features

Question 14

What are visual association areas?

Answer 14

interpret visual info and assigns meaning

Question 15

What are the two pathways to the visual association area

Answer 15

Ventral Pathway- The what pathway

• occipital to temporal lobes
• process shape, size, visual details of visual input

Dorsal Pathway- The where pathway

• occipital to parietal lobes
• process location, space, movement info of visual input

Question 16

What is the flash-lag illusion?

Answer 16

info processing in the visual system takes time and the visual system tried to make up for this time so it can provide an accurate account of what is happening now.

Question 17

What is implicit perception?

Answer 17

we can perceive something without consciousness or awareness and this form of perception still affects behaviour.

Question 18

what is blindsight?

Answer 18

when there is damage to the primary visual cortex but the person can still perceive without seeing.

Question 19

What do priming experiments show?

Answer 19

information presented to participants that they are not aware of still affects behavioural performance.

Question 20

What is the difference between Perception and Cognition?

Answer 20

Perception: what puts us in contact with our environment

Cognition: beliefs, expectations, decision

Question 21

What is the modularity of the mind hypothesis?

Answer 21

sensory modules feed into cognitive modules. However, cognitive modules cannot affect sensory modules.

Question 22

How do we guide perception?

Answer 22

By using assumptions of what we expect to see.

Question 23

What is Akinetopsia?

Answer 23

cannot see motion but can see stationary object

Question 24

What is Optic Ataxia?

Answer 24

cannot reach out for objects due to problems estimating movement and direction.

Question 25

What is Object Visual Agnosia?

Answer 25

selective problems in visual object recognition from damage to the ventral visual pathway.

Question 26

What is the Extra-striate body area (EBA)?

Answer 26

brain area involved in processing non-facial body parts

Question 27

What is the Parahippocampal place area (PPA)?

Answer 27

brain area responsible for the conscious recognition of places and scenes

Question 28

What is the fusiform face area (FFA)?

Answer 28

the brain area responsible for the conscious recognition of faces

Question 29

What is Prosopagnosia?

Answer 29

selective deficit in recognizing faces, keeping intact the ability to visually recognize other objects.

Question 30

What is Apperceptive Visual Agnosia?

Answer 30

failure in recognizing objects because problems with perceiving the elements of the objects + problems grouping visual features into meaningful percepts.

Question 31

What is Assicuative Visual Agnosia?

Answer 31

inability to associate visual input with meaning/linking perception to knowledge.

Question 32

What is bottom-up processing?

Answer 32

influence of inform from the external environment on perception

Question 33

What is Top-down processing?

Answer 33

influence of internal knowledge on perception

Question 34

What are pattern Recognition theories?

Answer 34

They emphasize:

• identifying a pattern in visual input
• Matching the pattern in visual input to existing patterns (concepts) stored in memory

Question 35

What is Template matching Theory?

Answer 35

there is variability in stimuli we recognize.

Question 36

What is prototype theory?

Answer 36

average representation of an object concept. allows for “flexible” object identification and accounts for variability.

Question 37

What is the recognition by components theory?

Answer 37

all objects are reducible to a set of 36 geons, which are basic geometric shapes.

Question 38

What is Selfridge’s Pandemonium/Feature detection model?

Answer 38

3 levels occur at the same time

-Bottom level: data or feature level

Individual feature are represented (size,color,shape, etc.)

-Middle level: cognitive level

Matches pattern of active features.

-Top level: decision level

Determines recognition by closes match from middle level.

Question 39

According to Selfridge, How are features processed?

Answer 39

in parallel (multiple computations performed at once)

Question 40

what was JJ Gibson’s ecological approach?

Answer 40

proposed that recognition can only be understood if we study it in the real world

states that perception is about picking up info from our environment and not about transforming sensations.

Question 41

What is a texture gradient?

Answer 41

density provides info about distance/depth of objects.

Question 42

What are topological breakages?

Answer 42

Discontinuity created by the intersection of two textures.

provides info about edges of object and aids in object identification.

Question 43

What is scatter reflection?

Answer 43

the degree to which light scatters when reflected from a surface, which tells us about the smoothness of a surface.

Rough surfaces= Light will scatter more widely.

Smooth surface: light is less scattered

Question 44

What affects visual perception?

Answer 44

context + prior knowledge

Question 45

What is the Gestalt approach to Perception?

Answer 45

the whole that is perceived is greater than the sum of its parts.

Question 46

What is the principle of experience?

Answer 46

experience affects how figure-ground segmentation occurs.

Question 47

What is the principle of proximity?

Answer 47

-objects/features that are close to one another in a scene will be judged as belonging together.

Question 48

What is the Principle of closed forms?

Answer 48

we see a shape in terms of closed forms, and we like to see items that enclose as a whole.

Question 49

What is the principle of good contour?

Answer 49

we perceive objects as continuous in cases where it is expected that they continue.

Question 50

What is the principle of similarity?

Answer 50

we organize objects or features of a scene based on similarity.

Question 51

what are the principles of common movements?

Answer 51

we group objects together that move together