Perception

Question 1

What is sensation?

Answer 1

Physical stimulation of the five senses processed by sense receptors.

Question 2

What is perception?

Answer 2

The brain’s interpretation of sensory information.

Question 3

Which illusion is this?

Answer 3

The Ponzo illusion.

It works because of misinterpreted depth cue. You perceive the horizontal line higher up as longer.

Question 4

Which illusion is this?

Answer 4

The Müller-Lyer illusion.

It works because of misinterpreted depth cue.

The two lines are the same length. The line with outgoing fins appears longer.

Question 5

Which illusion is this?

Answer 5

Rubin’s vase.

This is ambiguous.

There is a vase and two faces but the brain alternates between which is perceived.

Question 6

Which illusion is this?

Answer 6

The Ames room.

This works because of misinterpreted depth cues.

The room is the shape of a trapezoid and the floor painted to look like it is rectangular. People are seen as different sizes even though they are the same.

Question 7

What are the two binocular depth cues?

Answer 7

Retinal density This is the difference between the view of the left and right ey which gives information on depth and distance.

Convergence Eyes point closer together when an object is close. Muscles work harder when they are converging which enables perception of distance and depth.

Question 8

What are the 4 monocular depth cues?

Answer 8

Height in Plane Objects higher up look further away.

Relative size Smaller objects appear further away.

Occlusion An object obscured by another appears further away.

Linear Perspective Parallel lines e.g. the sides of straight tracks like railway lines, appear to get closer as they become more distant and eventually come to a point.

Question 9

Optical illusions

What is size constancy?

Answer 9

Objects perceived as constant size despite size on retina changing with distance. This can be seen in the three man illusion.

(You can be reminded of this from the Father Ted clip - “small…. far away!”)

Question 10

Optical Illusions

What are misinterpreted depth cues?

Answer 10

Objects apparently in the distance scaled up by brain to look normal size, causes visual illusions.

e.g. Ponzo illusion (converging lines give illusion of distance)

Muller Lyer illusion (outgoing arrowheds make line look like inside corner of the room, ingoing arrowheads look like outside of building)

Question 11

Optical Illusions

What are ambiguous figures?

Answer 11

Two possible interpretations of images. Brain can’t decide which is correct.

e.g. duck/rabbit

Question 12

Optical Illusions

What is fiction?

Answer 12

Seeing something that isn’t there.

e.g. Kanizsa triangle

Question 13

What is Gibson’s direct theory of perception?

Answer 13

Perception doesn’t draw on past experience. Sensation and perception are the same.

The eyes detect everything we need without having to make inferences.

Question 14

What are optic flow patterns?

Answer 14

When moving, things in the distance appear stationary (e.g. the moon) and everything else rushes past (e.g. trees)

Evidence for Gibson’s theory (eyes have all the information they need to see speed and distance)

Question 15

What is motion parallax?

Answer 15

A monocular depth cue.

When we are moving past them, closer objects appear to move faster than objects that are futher away.

Evidence for Gibson’s theory.

Question 16

Is Gibson’s theory support for nature or nurture (innate or learned)?

Answer 16

Nature (innate)

Question 17

What was Gibson’s and his wife’s experiment?

Answer 17

Infants put on a “visual cliff”. Very few crawled off.

Question 18

What are the three evaluative points for Gibson’s theory? (1- and 2+)

Answer 18

+ Real world meaning Gibons did research on 2nd World War pilots so relevant to real life.

+ Experimental support Gibson and Walk showed few infants crawl off a visual cliff so we are born with depth perception, it is not learned.

- Theory struggles to explain visual illusions Illusions “trick” the brain so we don’t always accurately perceive things.

Question 19

What is Gregory’s constructivist theory of perception?

Answer 19

Gregory proposes that sensation and perception are two different things and that the brain uses incoming information and information we already now as a hypothesis for what is being seen. Therefore we learn to see things from experience.

Question 20

What is inference?

Answer 20

The brain fills the gaps to create a conclusion about what is being seen. This is an idea that supports Gregory’s theory.

Question 21

Does Gregory’s theory support nature or nurture? (nature = born with it, nurture = learned)

Answer 21

Nurture. Perception is learned from experience. The more we interact, the more sophisticated our perception.

Question 22

What are the three evaluative points of Gregory’s theory? (2- and 1+)

Answer 22

Support from research from different cultures People interpret visual cues differently (e.g. Hudson’s study( showing experience affects perception)

Illusions Gregory’s research can explain illusions but he used 2D visual illusions which are artificial so may not apply to the real world.

How does perception get going? Babies have some perceptual abilities e.g. faces so perception can’t only be the result of what is learnt.

Question 23

Culture affecting perception

What was the method, results and conclusion of Hudson’s study?

Answer 23

Method: Showed 2D drawings to black and white children, unschooled and schooled. Children were asekd which is nearer, the man, the elephant or antelope?

Results: Black and white schooled more likely to perceive depth than unschooled. White schooled more likely to perceive depth than black schooled.

Conclusion: Different cultures use depth cues differently in 2D images (so have a different perceptual set).

Question 24

Factors affecting perception: Emotion

What is the Method, Results and Conclusion of McGinnies’ study?

Answer 24

Aim: McGinnies wanted to see whether things that cause anxiety are less likely to be noticed than things that are emotionally neutral.

Method: Eight male and eight female students were shown neutral and offensive ‘taboo’ words flashed on a screen.
After each word was shown participants had to say it out loud.
The amount of emotional arousal was measured through their galvanic skin response (GSR) which records electrical changes in the skin.

Results: Participants took longer to say offensive words like ‘bitch’ and ‘penis’ than neutral ones like ‘apple’ and ‘dance’.
Taboo words produced bigger changes in the GSR than neutral words.

Conclusion: This shows that emotion affects perceptual set.
Perceptual defence is used by the brain when confronted with words that are offensive or cause anxiety.

Question 25

One strength of McGinnies Study is that it used an objective measurement of emotion.

Answer 25

A scientific method was used – the galvanic skin response – to test biological anxiety responses.
This produces results that are less open to bias than, for example, rating scales.

Question 26

One weakness of McGinnies study is that delayed recognition may be more to do with embarrassment

Answer 26

Participants may have hesitated in giving their response as they were uncomfortable repeating rude words in a study.
This suggests that awkwardness may have been an extraneous variable.

Question 27

One weakness of studies such as McGinnies is that research in this area produces contradictory results . . .

Answer 27

This is because sometimes they suggest we are more likely to notice emotional material, and sometimes we are less likely.
This makes it difficult for psychologists to draw firm conclusions.

Question 28

How is perception affected by motivation?

Answer 28

The force that drives your behaviour (motivation) can affect how you perceive things in the environment.
Wanting something can increase its attractiveness.

Question 29

Outline Gilchrist and Nesberg’s study into how perceptaul set affects motivation

Answer 29

Aim: Gilchrist and Nesberg aimed to find out if food deprivation affects the perception of pictures of food.

Method: Two groups of students: one group deprived of food for 20 hours and a control group (not hungry).
Students were shown four slides, each one showing a meal.
The slide was displayed for 15 seconds.
The picture was shown again, but dimmer, and participants had to adjust the lighting to make it look the same as it did before.

Results: Participants perceived the food as brighter the longer they were deprived of food.
The control group (who were not deprived of food) didn’t perceive the food as brighter.

Conclusion: Being deprived of food increased perceptual sensitivity.
This shows that hunger is a motivating factor that affects the way food-related pictures are perceived.

Question 30

Evaluate Gilchrist and Nesberg’s study into how motivation affects percpetion

Answer 30

One strength is that similar studies have found similar results.
Sanford deprived participants of food and showed them ambiguous pictures. The longer they were deprived of food the more likely they were to see food.
This increases the validity of the Gilchrist and Nesberg results.

A problem with studies in this area is that they are unethical.
This is because depriving participants of food and water could cause them to feel uncomfortable.
This is an issue as you should not do this in psychological research.

A problem with the study is that it was not like everyday life.
Participants were asked to judge pictures of food rather than real food.
This makes it harder to apply the results to situations in the real world.

Question 31

Hoe does expectation affect perception?

Answer 31

The belief about what is likely to happen based on past experiences can affect how much we attend to or notice things in the environment.

Question 32

Outline Bruner and Minturn’s study into how expectation affects perception

Answer 32

Aim: Bruner and Minturn aimed to find out whether an ambiguous figure was seen differently if the context of the figure was changed.

Method: 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.

Results: 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’.

Conclusion: This shows that expectation of what the figure represented was affected by the context that the figure was presented in.

Question 33

Evaluate Bruner and Minturn’s study into how expectation effects perception

Answer 33

One weakness of the study is that it used an artificial task.
An ambiguous figure is designed to trick perception.
This makes the results lack validity.

One weakness relates to the fact that there were individual differences between groups.
This is because an independent groups design was used.
This is an issue as differences in perception between the groups may have been due to participant variables rather their expectations.

One strength of this study is that it has real-life application.
It can explain errors that people make as the results suggest that expectations can influence perception.
This helps to explain why people make sometimes serious mistakes on tasks in the real world.