Perception Flashcards
What is Perception
Making ‘sense’ of what our senses tell us. The active process or organising stimulus input and giving it meaning.
What is sensation?
The stimulus detection process by which our sense organs respond to and translate environmental stimuli into nerve impulses, then sent to the brain.
What is transduction?
The process of characteristics of stimulus being changed into impulses.
What is Psychophysics?
The study of relations between physical characteristics of stimuli and sensory capabilities.
What are the limits of sensitivity?
The most, or least, stimuli that a human can detect.
Differences between stimuli
The smallest difference between two stimuli that we can detect. Eg. Different shades of a colour or different brightnesses of light.
What is the absolute threshold?
The lowest intensity a stimuli can be detected at.
What is Subliminal Stimuli?
Very weak stimuli that do not register in awareness.
What is Decision Criteria?
The standard a person sets for themselves about how certain they are that a stimuli is present before they’ll admit that it’s there.
What is signal-detection theory?
Factors that influence sensory judgements
What is Difference Threshold?
The smallest difference between two stimuli that people can perceive 50% of the time.
What is Difference Threshold also known as?
Just Noticeable Difference (JND)
What is the Vestibular system used for?
Processing of optic-flow motion signals and sense of balance.
What is the Vestibular system?
Part of the middle ear and consists of fluid-filled chambers. Responds to inertial forces produced by speed and direction changes.
What are optic-flow signals?
Patterns of motion that images on eyes undergo as we move through the world. Also helps with balance, such as standing on one leg with eyes open.
Is vestibular system sensitive to variations in speed?
Yes.
Is Optic-flow sensitive to variations in speed?
No.
What is bottom-up processing?
Taking in individual elements of a stimulus and joining them together to create a single perception.
What is top-down processing?
Sensory information being processed based off already existed knowledge, concepts and ideas.
What is Inattentional blindness?
Failing to pay attention to certain stimuli due to attention being on another stimuli, meaning we are unable to register failed stimuli in consciousness.
Figure-ground relations
Bring able to organise stimuli into a foreground/central figure and a background.
What are the Gestalt laws of perpetual organisation?
Simiarity, Proximity, Closure, Continuity, Common Fate, Synchrony, Common region & Connectedness
What is perceptual schema?
A mental representation or image containing critical and distinctive features of a person, object, event or other perceptual phenomenon.
What is perseptual set?
A readiness to perceive stimuli in a particular way. Eg. Radar operator in war thinking a commercial aircraft is a war weapon from the opposition coming towards them so shooting it down, thinking it’s a threat.
Global Processing
Processing individual items as a whole perception.
Local Processing
Individual items being processed solely.
What is an illusion?
Compelling, but incorrect perceptions.
What are the two types of illusions?
Sensory and Perceptual
Critical periods
When certain types of experiences need to occur to be able to develop perceptual abilities and brain mechanisms that underlie them.
