Theories of Visual Perception Flashcards
Why is the perception of form and organisation important?
Because the environment contains hundreds of overlapping objects yet we have a perceptual experience of structured coherent objects that we can recognise and often name
Why does the visual system as a camera analogy easily break down?
- the left and the right visual fields go to the left and right visual cortex: there is no screen
- No 1:1 correspondence with the image at the back of the retina and visual processing
- The brain has to adjust for the retina being curved
- Receptors are unevenly distributed
- The image is inverted, tiny, curved and flat
What is perception?
The means by which information acquired from the environment via the sense organs is transformed into experiences of objects, events, sounds, tastes, ect
What is the whole of perception related to in terms of the brain working something out?
related to brain trying to work out what the distal stimulus is causing the proximal stimulus
What is the difference between sensation and perception?
Perception is the brain trying to work out what the distal stimulus is that causes the proximal stimulus. Sensation is the information that comes in
What is transduction?
Interpreting sense through electrical signals
What do different approaches to perception vary in?
- Bottom up vs top down processing
- Goal of perception
- Methods of study
What is Gestalt psychology
- the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
What are Gestalt psychologists interested in?
How we group parts of a stimulus together and the way we separate figure from ground: segregation and grouping
What is structuralism?
believes perception is a combination of individual sensations that can be reduced to simple individual elements such as lines
What are the 8 different rules of the Gestalt school of perception?
- Similarity
- Good continuation
- Proximity
- Connectedness
- Closure
- Common fate
- Familiarity
- Invariance
What is the similarity rule?
Similar objects are grouped together
What is the good continuation rule?
Points when connected result in straight or smoothly curving lines that follow each other
What is the proximity rule?
Things that are near to one another tend to be grouped together
What is the connectedness rule?
Things, physically connected together are perceived as a unit
What is the closure rule?
We tend to complete broken figures
What is the Common fate rule?
Things moving in the same direction are grouped together
What is the familiarity rule?
Things are more likely to form groups if groups appear familiar or meaningful
What is the invariance rule?
We have flexibility to recognise objects under different circumstances. E.g. we can see objects in different locations, orientations ect.
What are the problems with the Gestalt approach?
- Underplay the parallel processing and unconscious processing that the brain does
- Explanation of how some of their laws worked was wrong
- Their laws provide a description of how things work rather than an explanation
- Their laws are ill defined – Pragnanz – what is the simplest and most stable shape?
- Are they just stating the obvious?