Perception Flashcards
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
- understanding cognition via beh evidence
- beh data = importance within cog neuroscience/neuropsychology
- influence in psych = enormous
COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY
- studying brain-damaged patients to understand normal cog
- originally closely linked to cog psych
- recently liked to cog neuro
COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
- evidence from beh/brain to understand human cog
COMPUTATIONAL COGNITIVE SCIENCE
- developing computational models to further understanding of human cog
- models increasingly took account of our knowledge of beh/brain
ENERGY TO NEURAL SIGNAL
THE WORLD - ATTENTION - CONSCIOUS:
TRANSDUCTION
- transforming energy from the outside world into neural signal (firing of neurons)
SENSATION
- picking up that raw signal from the outside
PERCEPTION
- recognising what that signal means (ie. seeing a ball rather than a round blob)
ASPECTS OF THE EYE
- pupil
- cornea
- lens
- fovea
- optic nerve (fibres)
- photoreceptors
- retina
TOP-DOWN PROCESSING
- knowledge -> expectation -> culture -> experience -> memories
SPEECH SEGMENTATION - language speakers hear when a word ends/another begins despite input = continuous sound stream
- knowledge creates perception of individual words
BOTTOM-UP PROCESSING
- taste -> smell -> touch -> hearing -> sight -> sensory input
PAIN PERCEPTION - influenced by placebo
- expectation for pain reduction = refocusing of attention to others = pain reduction
THEORIES OF OBJECT PERCEPTION
- objects seen in 3D world; illusion shows we don’t see 2D shapes
HELMHOLTZ’S THEORY OF UNCONSCIOUS INFERENCE - particular pattern of activation in the retina can be caused via a range of objects
LIKELIHOOD PRINCIPLE - we perceive the object that is most likely to have caused a pattern
- results from unconscious assumptions (inferences) that we make about the environment; happens automatically
THE GESTALT PRINCIPLES (GROUPING)
- environment grouped into belonging bits of entity/object; next step = brain figures out what it is/characteristics making it part of a category
1. LAW OF SIMILARITY
2. LAW OF PRAGNANZ
3. LAW OF PROXIMITY
4. LAW OF CONTINUITY
5. LAW OF CLOSURE
6. LAW OF COMMON FATE - humans perceive visual elements moving at same speed/direction as single stimulus parts
MONOCULAR CUES OF DEPTH
RELATIVE SIZE
- small person perceived as further away; distance taken into account for size perception
INTERPOSITION
- overlapped object seems further away
LINEAR PERSPECTIVE
- parallel lines converging in distance seen as further (ie. railway lines)
ARIAL PERSPECTIVE
- distant items (ie. mountains) seem blue/blurry due to light in atmosphere; closer/sharper on clear days
LIGHT/SHADE
- light from above; perspective changes when image seen upside-down
MONOCULAR MOVEMENT PARALLAX
- head movement = close objects move fast; far = slow
WHY TWO EYES?
CONVERGENCE
- overlapping visual fields enable stereoscopic visions via blending slightly dissimilar object views
- allows us to see farther into distance w/higher resolution
BINOCULAR DISPARITY
INTERACTION OF PERCEPTION/ACTION
HELD & HEIN (1963)
- all active kittens developed visually guided paw placement response after 63 sessions; no passive (in box) kittens passed
- active kittens avoided deep glass cliff end; passives went randomly to deep/shallow sides
CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES
- cultural influences = environment/education/cultural history/language
SEGALL, CAMPBELL & HERSKOVITS (1963) - Western cultures more susceptible to Muller-Lyer illusion/Sander parallelogram against rural Africa/Philippines
- urban environments w/more rectangular shapes more prone to mistake lines as depth cues for distance
- rural = more flat terrain/actual distance
ATTENTIONAL BLINK PARADIGM IN CULTURE STUDY
MAYER & RAHMANN (2018)
- second stimuli = difficult process
- Greek/Russian pps better discriminating dark blue light (no green dif) than German pps (same green/blue perf)
- light/dark blue = dif words in Greek/Russian
- native language influences our perception
