Perception Flashcards

1
Q

What is perception?

A

“the dynamic psychological process responsible for attending to, organizing and interpreting sensory data” (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010

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2
Q

What is the Sensation and perception model made by Buchanan & Huczynski (2010)? bottom up (1-3) top down (3-5)

A

1) Sensory input = incoming raw data
2) Selective attention = we cannot pay attention to everything
3) Perceptual organisation = we look for order, meaning and patterns
4) Interpretation = sense-making, seeking closure
5) Behavioural response = saying and doing

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3
Q

What are the internal factors that influence perception (selective attention)?

A

1) Learning –past experiences lead us to the development of perceptual expectations or sets which means we learn to pay attention to some information and ignore others
2) Motivation – this links well with notions of needs and goals and the idea we will pay attention to those aspects which help us achieve our goals and needs
3) Personality – our personality traits mean we pay attention to some bits of information and less to others
4) Attitudes – view you have about a certain group impacts on what information you attend to

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4
Q

What are the external factors that influence perception (selective attention)?

A

1) stimulus factors- how large, bright, loud, familiar, moving, standing out the sensory information
2) Contextual factors (the setting) = context provides meaning to information and is important part of perception

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5
Q

What is habituation?

A

the notion that once a stimulus becomes familiar they stop being sensed because the perceptual threshold has been reached e.g. a noisy road at night

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6
Q

What is selective attention?

A

Filtering relevant information from irrelevant information

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7
Q

Explain the Gestalt perceptual organisation?

A

. Once we have perceived the information and selectively attended to it, we then need to organise it
. Emerged from Gestalt perspective in psychology (meaning organised whole) who developed principles as to how the brain organises visual input into meaningful holistic objects. Two major principles:
. Figure ground principle
. Closure principle

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8
Q

Explain the Figure and ground principle by the Gestalt perceptual organisation theory

A

. Disliking uncertainty, we look for solid, stable items. Unless an image is truly ambiguous, its foreground catches the eye first.
. the brain can only process one image as figure and one as ground one at a time
e.g vase in the white figure and faces in black background

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9
Q

Explain the Closure principle by the Gestalt perceptual organisation theory

A

Complete figures to form meaningful objects. However, sometimes the brain goes too far and creates figures where non actually exist

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10
Q

What is person perception?

A

How we obtain, store and recall information about other people in order to make judgements about them and others

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11
Q

Apply the gestalt principle to person perception

A

. Figure/ground = view an employee differently because she/he stands out from the others
. Closure = a decision is made about someone with the belief there is unity

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12
Q

What is the halo effect?

A

Perception of a person on one quality (e.g. appearance) influences positively the perception of them on another quality (e.g. performance)

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13
Q

What is the horns effect?

A

Opposite in that perceptions of quality on one feature influences negatively perception of them on another quality

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14
Q

What is the primary and recency effect?

A

Early or later information is weighed more heavily than other information in forming an impression/perception of an individual e.g. what you say at the start and end at an interview is the most important

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15
Q

What is the similarity effect?

A

The similarity effect involves gravitating towards people who have similar values, beliefs and
attitude

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16
Q

what is Projection?

A

Attribution of your own thoughts, feelings, values, attitudes on to others. Project your views onto others without evidence that they share them. e.g., if you are a suspicious person you may project that feeling onto others and regard them as suspicious

17
Q

What is perceptual defence?

A

Perceptual defence – tendency to screen out information that we find perceptually threatening or difficult to process e.g. smoker avoids the negative information on the packets

18
Q

What is the self-fulfilling prophecy of perception?

A

Our behaviour leads a person to conform to our expectations of that person. Behaving hostile to someone we see as uncooperative leading to them seeming uncooperative

19
Q

What is priming?

A

All about the tendency for recently used words, ideas or information to come to mind easily and influence the interpretation of new information

20
Q

What are stereotypes?

A

Generalisations about what people in a particular group are like – often based on race, gender, occupation and age

21
Q

What does attribution theory do?

A

People make causal attributions about events that happen around them – to understand them

22
Q

Who came up with the covariation theory of attribution and when?

A

Kelley’s (1967)

23
Q

Explain Kelley’s (1967) covariation theory of attribution

A

Suggests that we are all experimenters and when faced with information we attribute based on three elements:

1) Consensus = is the behaviour different from or similar to the behaviour of most other people in the same situation?
2) Distinctiveness = How different was the behaviour of the person in this situation?
3) Consistency = Is the behaviour associated with an enduring personality characteristic or a one-off event

. Leads to the conclusion of whether to attribute something to internal or external factors

24
Q

What is the fundamental attribution error?

A

We are too inclined to see the person (actor) as the cause of their own behaviour. We neglect the influence of other persons involved (observers) and the general situation – especially when bad things happen