Perception And Memory Flashcards
What does visual perception enable a person to do?
- Segregate objects from one another and from their background
- Judge how near or far objects are
- Recognise different objects
What is the first stage in the development of visual perception?
Appreciation of certain aspects of an object’s shape
What is the ‘figure-ground’ phenomenon?
A form of perceptual organisation that allows any line that encloses an area whose shape is recognised as representing an object, appears to stand out from the background
What are the factors included in how the visual system organises stimuli into patterns?
Proximity, similarity, closure and orientation
What visual cues can be used to indicate the distance of objects?
Relative size - By appearing to decrease in size, things can appear further away
Superimposition - When one object blocks the view of another, the blocked object is seen as further away
Linear perspective - Parallel lines may appear to converge in the distance
Why is binocular imaging better than monocular?
Two images from each eye are merged into one by the brain by fusion. Is indicates depth and distance more efficiently than monocular vision, which comes about when you’ve consumed alcohol and the process of fusion fails (people see double)
What is size constancy?
The perception that an object remains the same size regardless of the size of the image in the retina. (Cat running away)
Depends on past experience and stored knowledge
What is shape constancy?
The perception that on objects shape remains the same regardless of the changes in the angle at which it is viewed
Depends on past experience and stored knowledge
What is the importance of shape?
The most important feature of an objects shape is it’s general outline.
The shape of an object is initially characterised during early learning, this info is then stored in long term memory
What is perceptual set?
The tendency of a person to perceive certain aspects of available sensory information and ignore others.
It is affected by expectation, context and past experience.
What is memory?
The capacity of the brain to store, retain and retrieve information when necessary.
How does an image become a memory?
It must be encoded, stored, or retrieved
Describe the sensory memory
This is the impression of stimuli from the outside world continuously being perceived by sensory images in the brain.
0.5 seconds for visual, 2 seconds for auditory
Describe the short term memory
The STM holds ~7 objects at a time for a short time (~30s)
After 30s, items are either transferred to long term memory or lost be displacement or decay
How can you help information be sent from the STM to the LTM?
Chunking - Organising many pieces of information into smaller units
Rehearsal - Repeating a piece of information
