Perception 2 Flashcards
What is Gregory’s theory?
Gregory’s constructivist theory is a top-down theory and states that we use our past experiences to interpret and perceive the world around us, where we build our perceptions partly on incoming data and also using our past experiences of the world to construct our knowledge. Gregory’s theory says that perception is a construction and falls on the nurture side of the argument.
talk about Gregory’s theory - perception is a construction
according to Gregory’s theory, our brain can make a “guess” about the sensory information that we receive, where we use our past experiences to build our knowledge on the world.
talk about gregory’s theory - inference
Lots of what we percieve daily is ambiguous and incomplete, where it could have many possible meanings. It is up to our brain, where it uses our past experiences to fill in the gaps from the incoming information and drawing a conclusion. The inference that is made can be correct or incorrect
talk about Gregory’s theory - visual cues
Our brain uses visual cues to draw mostly accurate conclusions but when we are presented with visual illusions, we can incorrectly perceive depth cues and make incorrect conclusions. Gregory explains this as a mistaken hypothesis (our brain has drawn the wrong conclusion from the sensory information received)
Talk about the role of nuture in Gregory’s theory
Gregory says that our perception is due to nurture, so upbringing and culture. Our perception becomes more sophisticated as we grow up and obtain more knowledge about our environment and interactions with the world around us. Research has shown that cultural upbringing and the way that we are raised can influence our perception
give a brief explanation of Gregory’s theory
- overview => Gregory proposed that we use our past experiences to make sense of the world around us
- perception is a construction => Gregory proposed that our brain uses the incoming sensory information that we receive, as well as using information that we have gathered previously. This means that perception is a construction
- inference => most of the information that we recieve from our sensory organs is incomplete or ambiguous, so our brain has to use our past experiences to fill in those gaps, which allows us to draw a conclusion. this is called inference
- visual cues => visual cues gives us information about the depth and distance and visual illusions cause the wrong conclusions to be drawn from these cues.
- role of nurture => according to Gregory, our perception becomes more sophisticated the older we become and due to our different upbringings and cultural differences, everybody tends to perceive the world differently, meaning that perception isn’t universal, but rather personal.
what is another point about Gregory’s theory?
Gregory’s theory is a TOP DOWN theory
what are the 4 factors that affect perception? What are the studies associated with them?
- expectation (Bruner and Mintern)
- culture
- emotion
- motivation (Gilchrist and Nesberg)
what is expectation?
Expectation is when we respond or perceive stimuli based on what we expect, which can affect our perceptual set, where we apply our past experiences to attend or ignore certain things in an environment
what was the aim of the Bruner and Mintern study?
The Brunner and Mintern’s study wanted to see how expectations would affect the perceptual set. Expectations that influence the way that people interpret the world around them are usually created by the context in which the information is set in.
what was the method of the Bruner and Mintern study?
An independent groups design was used where participants were either presented with a sequence of letters or a sequence of numbers with the same ambiguous figure in the middle.
The ambiguous figure could be seen as either the letter B or as the number 13.
Participants had to report and also draw what they saw.
what was the experimental design used in the Bruner and Mintern study?
Independent groups design
what was the research method used in the Bruner and Mintern study?
Lab experiment
what were the results of the Bruner and Mintern study?
Those who saw a sequence of letters were more likely to report the figure as being the letter B and tended to draw a ‘B’.
If shown numbers they were more likely to say it was the number 13 and drew a ‘13’.
what was the conclusion in the Bruner and Mintern study?
This shows that expectations are an important factor and it shows that by changing the way that information is presented, it can change the way that the information is perceived.
what is a strength of the Bruner and Mintern study? use PBT
(explains perceptual errors)
P - A strength of Bruner and Minturn is that it can explain the errors that we make in our perception.
B - This is because in Gregory’s constructivist theory, he argues that perception is an active process where we use our past experiences in order to perceive the world around us, where we make “guesses” which is influenced by our previous knowledge.
T - Therefore, this increases the validity of the study since it has real-life relevance and backs up Gregory’s theory.
what is a strength of Bruner and Mintern? use PBT
(lab experiment)
P - A strength of Bruner and Mintern is that it uses standardized procedures.
B - This is because this study is a lab experiment, meaning that the materials and the method of the study can be easily replicated by another researcher.
T - Therefore, this increases the reliability of the study since it can be easily replicated and can show the effect of expectation on our perceptual set.
what is a weakness of the Bruner and Mintern study. use PBT
(mundane realism)
- A weakness of the Bruner and Minturn is that the study lacks mundane realism.
- This is because in a real life scenario, it would be unusual to have to deduce a figure in a visual illusion naturally (which was the ambiguous figure), which means that it lacks mundane realism because the task that was done by the participants that couldn’t really be generalised into a real-life setting.
- This reduces the validity of the study.
what is mundane realism? how is it different from ecological validity?
Ecological validity is how the entire study can be applied to real life situations and how it can be generalized to a population holistically while mundane realism is how much the single task can be applied to real life
what is a strength of Gregory’s theory? use PBT
(supporting evidence)
P - One strength of Gregory’s constructivist theory is that there is supporting evidence to show that the way we interpret information from our senses depends on past experiences.
B - This is because many studies have shown that perceptions were affected by participant’s expectations and experiences.
T - Therefore, this increases the validity of the study, this means that nurture affects perception.
what is a strength of Gregory’s theory?
(shows cultural differences)
- Another strength of Gregory’s constructivist theory is that it has good support from studies that show cultural differences in perception.
- This is because there are many studies that show that different parts to the world interpret visual cues differently suggesting that their different experiences shape what they perceive. This means that nurture plays a key role in helping us understand what we actually “see” and the world around us.
- Therefore, this increases the validity of the result
what is a weakness of Gregory’s theory?
A weakness of Gregory’s theory is that there are gaps in explaining how perception “gets going” in the first place. This is because there are studies that show that babies have perceptual abilities from birth, such as the visual cliff experiment and another study that shows that babies prefer human faces to random patterns. Therefore, Gregory might not be completely correct and that some perception might be the result of nature, reducing the validity of this study.
what is culture and how does it affect perception?
Culture refers to the beliefs and expectations that surrounds us. It affects our perception because our attitudes, beliefs, and past experiences changes the way we perceive the world around us
what is emotion and how does it affect our perception?
emotion is a strong feeling or mood that drives our perception, where due to our emotions, we tend to take more or less notice to certain things. Other studies have shown that it takes longer to perceive something that we find unpleasant.
