perception and visual cognition

Question 1

what is perception

Answer 1

active process - very important puts focus on individual seeking things out in active world
creation of experience
organises raw swnsory data and gives it meaning

Question 2

Bottom up processing

Answer 2

Individual elements of the stimulus are combined into a unified perception.
putting together small pieces of information to make unified whole
think of reading
not perceiving all little intricate parts of letter you percieve the whole word

Question 3

top down processing

Answer 3

Sensory input interpreted in light of existing knowledge, concepts, ideas and expectations.
Important route to idiosyncratic, unique perceptual experiences.
much more formalised component
have expectations that pull together the perception that goes beyond stimulus elements
PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THE SAME SENSORY INPUT BU HAVE DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES

Question 4

idiosyncratic unique visual experiences

Answer 4

everyone has had different presences and therefore different expectations

Question 5

top down processing: exMPLE

Answer 5

LOOKING AT PHOTO SOMEONE SEES WOMAN SOMEONE SEES MAN PLAINGSAXAPHONE
led zeppelin song
some people hear the secret message some don’t
this is because some expect it and actively go out to seek it

Question 6

Attention and perceptionL selective attention

Answer 6

attention is crucial in perception
we are exposed to a lot of stimuli at any given time much of which is irrelevant
Selective attention allows us to focus on certain stimuli and filter out other information.

Question 7

Cherry’s (1953) cocktail party effect

Answer 7

When you hear someone mention your name at a party, you attend to what they say, filtering out other conversations.
can be seen in dichotic listening tasks

Question 8

inattentional blindness (Mach 2003)

Answer 8

is easily missing striking occurrences due to not paying attention
what happens to that information we received in sensory information
people aren’t ignoring the other information, they’re just attending more to other information

Question 9

what determines what we pay attention to

Answer 9

external factors

internal more personal factors

Question 10

external factors

Answer 10

intensity
movement
size
novelty

Question 11

internal factors

Answer 11

interests

motives

Question 12

internal v external: example

Answer 12

Two pictures with bottles and alcohol
those who drink were more likely to notice the change to the alsohol bottles than those who didn’t drink but they didn’t notice a control change

Jones etal 2003

Question 13

potential source

Answer 13

tend to ‘pop out’ at us (Hansen & Hansen 1998)

Threatening faces make it harder to find other faces

Question 14

Breaks in perception

Answer 14

When perception breaks down

what this tells us about perception

Question 15

Breaks in perception:The Thatcher illusion

Answer 15

Two faces
both of Barrack Obama
one picture have some adjustments tot he features
hardly noticed when face is upright but when showed upside down and inverted these processes used for facial perception is dirupted and changes can be noticed more easily

Question 16

figure ground segregation

Answer 16

Separating out the figure and the ground so the background and the foreground
one of the critical first steps in organising raw sensory data
rule of thumb in distinguishing:
the figure is think on top and ground is behind

Question 17

Figure-ground confusion: examples

Answer 17

inverting colours on map

optical illusions with line drawing of elephant with too many legs

Question 18

Gastalt principles

Answer 18

similarity
proximity
closure
continuity
figure V Ground
...rules of thumb that the perception system uses to help organise raw sensory data

the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts

Question 19

Gastalt Principles: Similarity

Answer 19

Group similar things together
group different things apart
Determined by similarity in:
colour
size
shape etc

Question 20

Gastalt principles: Proximity

Answer 20

Group things together that are close to each other or organised together such as in squares etc despite colour differences

Question 21

Gastalt principles: Closure

Answer 21

Tendancy to fill in the gaps o create a unified or coherent object
e fill in gaps in a circle or more angular object like rectangle
closure used a lot in graphic design

Question 22

Gastalt principles: continuity

Answer 22

Tendancy to perceive flowing patterns in lines rather than those that contain sharp angular changes in perception so in an X you view two diagonal lines rather than two arrows
eg concentric circles that due to the pattern were seen as spirals going off into distance

Question 23

Gastalt principles: Figure V Ground

Answer 23

Tendancy to distinguish figure from the ground

Question 24

Relative perception

Answer 24

We perceive things relative to other things

Question 25

Ebinghaus illusion

Answer 25

perceive an object surrounded by smaller objects as bigger than when its presented with identical ones
use of visual landmarks to estimate the relative size of something

Question 26

monocular cuesv binocular ces

Answer 26

cues to depth perception between that of one eye and those that depend on information from two eyes
monocular and binocular cues are very different

Question 27

monocular cues to depth

Answer 27

with object:
relative sizesize
occlusion
relative height
combinations of all three provides a very obscured view of depth
Other cues:
linear perspective
shadows
clarity
motion parallax

Question 28

monocular cues: relative size

Answer 28

in absence of other information there is a tendency to perceive things large as near and small as far away

Question 29

monocular cues: occlusion

Answer 29

refers to the tendency to perceive the thing in front of something as being nearer
occlusion refers to covering something so photos where people are pushing over th leaning tower of pisa from a distance that obscures the depth cause your not covering the tower

Question 30

monocular cues :relative height

Answer 30

boats higher up toward horizon are sensed as further away

Question 31

monocular cues: linear perspective

Answer 31

tendency of lines to converge as they go od ff into the distance
allows artists to create very powerful strong impressions of depth

Question 32

monocular cues: texture gradient

Answer 32

perceive things that share a continuity in pattern and group them together and sense that the reason that the patterns flow is because they share the same location in space

Question 33

monocular cues: shadows

Answer 33

false shadows can create misleading impressions of depth

David Blain giving the impression that he’s levitating through exploitation of shadow

Question 34

monocular cues: clarity

Answer 34

things that are in the foreground tend to be perceived moocher clearly that things in the background
this can be manipulated by making background more clear to card confusion

Question 35

motion parallax

Answer 35

tendency for things at different difference to move at different speeds
far things wipe across the retina more slowly than near things to us
e.g. the clouds, aeroplanes

Question 36

Binocular cues

Answer 36

most effective and compelling depth cues:
binocular disparity
convergence

Question 37

binocular cues: binocular disparity

Answer 37

refers to tendency of getting a slightly different image from each eye
tendency of perceptual system to use difference between both eyes to compute information about depth

Question 38

binocular cues; convergence

Answer 38

refer to perceptual systems tendency to use information from muscles in eyes to make inferences about depth
since eyes are in different possessions depending onto far something is

Question 39

perceiving motion

Answer 39

imperitive for survival sensed by image wing across the retina

Question 40

stroboscopic motion

Answer 40

ability to perceive something as moving although its not