Recognizing Objects

Question 1

Recognition

Answer 1

Typically:
- Fast
- Effortless
- Prone to error

Question 2

Fast Pop-Out Search

Answer 2

When all items except the target share the same feature, target is easy to find, regardless of the number of distracting items (sometimes called the singleton search)

Question 3

Slow Conjunction Search

Answer 3

Target does not possess any unique features, and only can be identified based on a conjunction of two or more features. The more distracting items there are, the slower the search is

Question 4

Frequency and Recency

Answer 4

Familiar (high-frequency) words are likely to be recognized.
Recently primed words are more likely to be recognized.

Question 5

Word Superiority Effect

Answer 5

The data pattern in which research participants are more accurate and more efficient in recognizing letters if the letters appear within a word (or a word-like letter string) than they are in recognizing letters appearing in isolation

Question 6

Degree of Well-Formedness

Answer 6

A measure of the degree to which a string of symbols (usually letters) conforms to the usual patterns (e.g., the nonword “FIKE” is well formed in English, but “IEFK” is not)

Question 7

What is Bottom-Up Processing?

Answer 7

A sequence of events that is governed by the stimulus input itself

Question 8

What is Top-Down Processing?

Answer 8

A sequence of events that is heavily shaped by the knowledge and expectations that the person brings to the situation

Question 9

What are Feature Nets?

Answer 9

Systems for recognizing patterns that involve a network of detectors, with detectors for features serving as the initial layer in each system

Question 10

Activation Level

Answer 10

A measure of the current status for a node or detector. Activation level is increased if the node or detector receives the appropriate input from its associated nodes or detectors; activation level will be high if input has been received frequently or recently

Question 11

Response Threshold

Answer 11

The quantity of information or activation needed to trigger a response in a node or detector, or, in a neuroscience context, a response from a neuron

Question 12

Distributed Knowledge

Answer 12

Relative activation across nodes more important than local activation within one node

Question 13

McClelland and Rumelhard

Answer 13

Connections can be feed-forward or feedback, and excitatory or inhibitory

Question 14

Excitatory Connections

Answer 14

A link from one node, or one detector, to another, such that activation of one node activates the other

Question 15

Inhibitory Connections

Answer 15

A link from one node, or detector, to another, such that activation of one node decreases the activation level of the other

Question 16

Errors Due to Overgeneralization

Answer 16

• You see what you expect to see
• Accuracy sacrificed for efficiency

Question 17

Viewpoint Invariance

Answer 17

Our ability to recognize an object regardless of the viewpoint (most of the time)

Question 18

Recognition by Components (RBC) Model

Answer 18

A model of object recognition. In this model, a crucial role is played by geons, the (hypothesized) basic building blocks out of which all the objects we recognize are constructed

Question 19

What are Geons?

Answer 19

Basic shapes proposed as the building blocks of all complex three-dimensional forms. They are the visual alphabet of object recognition

Question 20

Recognition By Multiple Views

Answer 20

• Multiple viewpoints encoded in memory
• Mental rotation required if current view does not match any stored views

Question 21

What is Prosopagnosia?

Answer 21

A syndrome in which individuals lose their ability to recognize faces and to make other fine-grained discriminations within a highly familiar category, even though their other visual abilities seem intact

Question 22

What is the Inversion Effect?

Answer 22

a pattern typically observed for faces in which the specific face is much more difficult to recognize if the face is presented upside-down

Question 23

What is Holistic Recognition?

Answer 23

A process in which the ability to identify an object depends on the whole, or the entire configuration, rather than on an inventory of the object’s parts

Question 24

Composite Effect

Answer 24

• Hard to recognize half of face when aligned with another face
• Evidence that faces are processed holistically (face recognition is based on the relationships between features, not perception of individual features)