Sensation and Perception Flashcards
What is Perception?
Perception is the process by which we interpret and give meaning to sensory information
Perception is an Active Process
What is Top-Down Processing?
With Top-Down Processing, the perceptual process starts ‘at the top’ with higher level ‘processing’ in the brain and then works ‘down’ from the whole t o the details. Perception is guided and influenced by cognitive processes, such as drawing on your past experience, knowledge and expectation in order to interpret and assign meaning to raw sensory information.
Which Types of Processing fills in gaps in sensory data? (I.e Illusions)
Top down processing will also take account of the context in which perception occurs. If there are gaps in sensory data, then these may be filled in when constructing the perception.
What is Bottom-Up Processing?
With Bottom-Up Processing, the perceptual process starts ‘at the bottom’ with raw sensory information that is sent ‘up’ to the brain for higher level mental ‘processing’. Raw sensory data are progressively analyzed at higher and higher levels until they reach the relevant cortical areas in the brain where they are processed and a perception is constructed based on this information. Unlike top-down processing, the bottom-up perceptual process relies ENTIRELY ON SENSORY DATA
aka. Data driven processing
What are the three main factors that influence Visual Perception?
Psychological Factors
Biological Factors
Social Factors
What are the three stages of Perception?
Selection:
Selection is the process of attending to certain sensory stimuli and excluding others
Involves conscious and unconscious selection
Organization:
Organization is the process of regrouping sensory stimuli to form a meaningful understanding
Interpretation:
Interpretation is the process to which information is given meaning so that it can be understood
Involves bringing together other incoming sensory information and existing knowledge (memories/experiences/emotional state) to make sense of information.
What are the three stages of Sensation?
Reception
Reception is the process of detecting incoming accuracy information
The information received by the sensory receptors cannot be interpreted by the brain in its raw form so transduction is required.
Transduction
Transduction is the process by which the information is converted into a form which can travel along neural pathways to the brain as neural impulses
Change the message to an electrochemical message
Transmission
Simply involves sending information to the brain
Once it arrives, the process involved in perception begins
In vision, transmission occurs:
Optic nerve -> Thalamus -> visual cortex
How does Transmission occur in Visual Sensation?
In vision, transmission occurs:
Optic nerve detects light -> Thalamus transfers the raw data into electrochemical messages-> the messages begin to be interpreted while they are sent to the visual cortex
What is Sensation?
Sensation involves receiving sensory information from the environment
Name the 3 Sensory Receptors
Vision: Retina
Hearing: tympanic membrane
Taste: Taste Buds
Touch: Skin, nerves
Smell: Olfactory receptor
What are the 3 visual perception principles
The Gestalt Principles
Depth cues
Perceptual consistencies
What are the Gestalt Principles? (definition)
The Gestalt Principles are ways in which we organize the visual feature of a scene by grouping them to perceive a whole, complete form.
-In other words these are how the human mind completes a picture without having to actually see the whole picture
Name 3 Gestalt Principles (there are more)
Figure ground organization
The Principle of Figure-Ground Organization
We use this principle when we visually organize a scene so that we separate an object (“figure”) from the background
What our eyes focus on is the “figure” and it stands out from the “ground” which is the rest of its surroundings.
Distinction
Contour
Distinctive color
Patterns that obviously differ.
Closure
The principle of closure is the perceptual tendency to close up fill in or ignore gaps in an image in order to view an image in order to view an object as a whole.
Similarity
The principles of similarity is the tendency to perceive parts of a visual image that have similar traits (colors, size, shape, texture) as belonging to together as a group or whole
Proximity
The principle of proximity is the tendency to perceive parts of a visual image which are positioned close together as belonging together in a group
What is Depth Perception
Depth Perception is the ability to accurately estimate the distance of objects and therefore perceive the world in three dimensions
What are Depth Cues?
Depth Cues are sources of information from the environment (external cues) or from within the body (internal cues) that help us to perceive how far away objects are and therefore to perceive depth
Depth Cues are categorised into two groups - Binocular and monocular