Sensation & Perception - Lecture 4

Question 1

Extrastriate cortex

Answer 1

The region of cortex bordering the primary visual cortex and containing multiple areas involved in visual processing.

Question 2

Border ownership

Answer 2

When one object is in front of another there will be a visual border formed between the object and the background. That border is “owend” by the object. It is the edge of the object, not a property of the background.

Question 3

Lesion

Answer 3

In reference to neurophysiology
1.(n) A region of damaged brain.
2.(v) To destroy a section of the brain.

Question 4

Agnosia

Answer 4

A failure to recognize objects in spite of the ability to see them. Agnosia is typically due to brain damaged.

Question 5

Inferotemporal (IT) cortex

Answer 5

Part of the cerebral cortex in the lower portion of the temporal lobe, important in object recognition.

Question 6

Homologous regions

Answer 6

Brain regions that appear to have the same function in different species.

Question 7

Fusiform face area (FFA)

Answer 7

A region of extrastriate visual cortex in humans that is specifically and reliably activated by humans faces.

Question 8

Extrastriate body area (EBA)

Answer 8

A region of extrastriate visual cortex in humans that is specifically and reliably activated by images of the body other than the face.

Question 9

Parahippocampal place area (PPA)

Answer 9

A region of extrastriate visual cortex in humans that is specifically and reliably activated more by images of places than by other stimuli.

Question 10

Visual word form area (VWFA)

Answer 10

A region of extrastriate visual cortex in humans that is specifically and reliably activated more by images of written words than by other stimuli.

Question 11

Feedforward process

Answer 11

A process that carries out a computation one neural step after another, without need for feedback from a later stage to an earlier stage.

Question 12

Reverse-hierarchy theory

Answer 12

a concept that aims to link between the hierarchies of processing and the dynamics of perception.

Question 13

Mid-level vision

Answer 13

A loosely defined stage of visual processing that comes after basic features have been extracted from the image and before object recognition and scene understanding.

Question 14

Illusory contour

Answer 14

A contour that is perceived even though noting changes from one side of it to the other in an image.

Question 15

Structuralism

Answer 15

In reference to perception, a school of thought that believed that complex objects or perceptions could be understood by analysis of the components.

Question 16

Gestalt

Answer 16

In German, literally “form.” In reference to perception, a school of thought stressing that the perceptual whole can be greater than the apparent sum of the parts.

Question 17

Gestalt grouping rules

Answer 17

A set of rules describing which elements in an image will appear to group together. The original list was assembled by members of the Gestalt school of thought.

Question 18

Good continuation

Answer 18

A Gestalt grouping rule stating that two elements will tend to group together if they seem to lie on the same contour.

Question 19

Texture segmentation

Answer 19

Carving an image into regions of common texture properties.

Question 20

Similarity

Answer 20

A Gestalt grouping rule stating that the tendency of two features to group together will increase as the similarity between them increases.

Question 21

Proximity

Answer 21

A Gestalt grouping rule stating that the tendency of two features to group together will increase as the distance between them decreases.

Question 22

Parallelism

Answer 22

A rule for figure-ground assignment stating that parallel contours are likely to belong to the same figure.

Question 23

Symmetry

Answer 23

A rule for figure-ground assignment stating that symmetrical regions are more likely to be seen as figure.

Question 24

Ambiguous figure

Answer 24

A visual stimulus that gives rise to two or more interpretations of iets identity or structure.

Question 25

Necker cube

Answer 25

An outline that is perceptually bi-stable. Unlike the situation with most stimuli, two interpretations continually battle for perceptual dominance.

Question 26

Accidental viewpoint

Answer 26

A viewing position that produces some regularity in the visual image that is not present in the world.

Question 27

Figure-ground assignment

Answer 27

The process of determining that some regions of an image belong to a foreground object and other regions are part of the background.

Question 28

Surroundedness

Answer 28

A rule for figure-ground assignment stating that if one is entirely surrounded by another, it is likely that the surrounded region is the figure.

Question 29

Relatability

Answer 29

The degree of which two line segments appear to be part of the same contour.

Question 30

Heuristic

Answer 30

A mental shortcut

Question 31

Non-accidental feature

Answer 31

A feature of an object that is not dependent on the exact viewing position of the observer.

Question 32

Global superiority effect

Answer 32

The finding in various experiments that the properties of the whole object take precedence over the properties of parts of the object.

Question 33

Decoding

Answer 33

The process of determining the nature of a stimulus from the pattern of responses measured in the brain or, potentially, in an artificial system. The stimulus could be a sensory stimulus or it could be an internal state

Question 34

Template

Answer 34

The internal representation of a stimulus that is used to recognize the stimulus in the world. Unlike its use in, for example, making a key, a mental template is not expected to actually look like the stimulus that it matches.

Question 35

Holistic processing

Answer 35

Processing based on analysis of the entire object or scene and not on adding together a set of smaller parts or features.

Question 36

Prosopagnosia

Answer 36

An inability to recognize faces.

Question 37

Congenital prosopagnosia

Answer 37

A from of face blindness apparently present from birth, as opposed to acquired prosopagnosia, which would typically be the result of an injury to the nervous system.