Unit 2 - Environmental Perception and Cognition Flashcards
Define environmental perception.
Environmental Perception: it the initial gathering of information. Environmental perception includes the ways and means by which we collect information through all our senses. The term is used more broadly to include aspects of how we appraise and assess environments.
Summarize the differences between the traditional approach to perception (object perception) and the environmental perception approach.
Object Perception: was the traditional approach to investigating perception that attempted to do so by reducing the complexity of everyday perception by presenting simple stimulus’s in a laboratory setting, where maximum control over all possible extraneous influences may be exerted.
Research in objective perception places emphasis on properties of simple stimuli such as their brightness, color, depth, perceptual constancy, form, and apparent movement
Environmental perception on the other hand embrace the complexity of stimulus found in the environmental displays they wish to study.
Research in environmental perception places emphasis on large-scale scenes, treated as whole entities.
Differences between approaches include size and complexity, but also include differences in the role of the perceiver. In environmental perception studies, the participants often move in and around the scene and are apart of it. This movement offers multiple perspectives and the perceiver is often connected to the display by a clear goal or purpose.
Environmental research must account for the myriad of personal and physical influences on the perception of these complex and dynamic scenes.
Is our perception of the environment selective and adaptable? Explain your answer and give an example.
Yes, active and selective attention to details such as price range of a house, or a color of a car, or full embrace of a horizon. Selectivity of our perception is largely influenced by our attention and focus of environmental stimuli.
Perception is also adaptable, such as reduced perception of the details on the everyday drive to and from work.
We may additionally become habituated to the environment such as to the smell of an area or air pollution.
In some cases we may experience environmental numbness (lack of awareness of the surroundings) when are attention is commanded through daydreaming, highway hypnosis or other lively aspects of the world.
Describe briefly the various forms in which the physical environment is presented to the perceiver in research studies.
One way is by showing real live scenes to participants,
However, because this is not always feasible other methods may include - virtual reality, photos, videos, sketches, or models of everyday scenes. - these options have shortcomings, but can still be good at producing the same responses elicited by the setting.
Describe the common methods researchers use to study environmental perception. What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of these methods?
Self-report methods: Includes questionnaires, interviews, checklists, and free descriptions assessing the sensations/perceptions of an environment. - Shortcomings include inaccuracies of self-reports of self-perceptions, incorrectly recall or forget perceptions from the past, or report what they believe the experimenter wishes to hear. Additionally, perception is filtered through language. Nonetheless they are reasonably accurate and economical ways to study environmental perception.
Time-sampling: Participants move through settings and report at certain intervals, exactly what they are looking at, listening to etc. - Has the advantage over self-report in that it does not have to rely on observer memory.
Behavior-inference method: Infers perception by analyzing perceivers behavior such as inferring interest by recording length of time spent looking at art pieces. - May be less economical then other methods.
Psychophysical Method: Psychophysicists know that people can reliably adjust some physical variable (heaviness of weight) in direct proportion to the perception of a psychological construct (seriousness of crime for example). These magnitude estimations allow for calculation of equations called power functions that express a psychological variable in terms of a known physical scale. - May provide a more quantitative estimation of perceptions, but are more narrow in perceptive selection.
Phenomenological Approach: Researcher may also be the perceiver. Rather then employ many subjects, the goal is to use a single very carefully trained observer whose goal is to perceive the essence of a setting in a qualitative way. - Allows detailed gathering of qualitative data, however may face problems of restricted sample size.
Summarize personal factors that influence environmental perception. Illustrate your answer with examples from your daily life.
Personal factors such as gender (differences in building distance between genders), experience, profession, can affect qualitative perception of an area.
List physical factors that influence our perception of the environment. Can you think of a personal example?
Physical factors such as how lighting is distributed, furniture or fullness of the room, or windows can effect the perceived spaciousness of a room. Turns in a path make the distance seem longer. Fog may make things seem farther away and larger - the same effects occur when objects are viewed underwater especially as it becomes murkier. We additionally feel safer in more perceived enclosure then open spaces.
The terrestrial saucer effect leads mountain climbers to believe that neighboring mountain peaks equal in altitude to their own as much higher then their own. Additionally, when pedestrians are subjected to more traffic noise, their perceptual field narrows.
Outline Egon Brunswik’s theory of environmental perception. Why is this theory described as “probabilistic functionalism”?
Argues that both the viewer and the environment have to be understood as systems, each with properties of their own. - Brunswick believed that perception is our active attempt to extract a useful image of the environment from the mass of potentially confusing cues, we learn which cues are important and how to use them. -perceivers must accurately determine their environment such as perceived crime vs. actual crime
Known as probalistic functionalism: The environment offers a multitude of cues, the perceiver must make sense of the most important ones to function effectively in a setting. Probalism refers to Brunswicks belief that no single cue is either a perfectly reliable or perfectly unreliable clue to the true nature of the environment, but rather has a certain probability of being accurate
Think of your own example to illustrate Brunswik’s theory. Use the concepts of ecological validity, cue utilization, and achievement in your answer.
Ecological validity: the degree of ‘truth’ in the probalistic relations between the environment and each of the cues - odds that cues would lead to effective perception of the setting.
Cue utilization: the probalistic weight given to each cue by the perceiver, whether the cue is valid or not - (usually unconscious) - we gradually learn what to look for in a given setting, and gradually learn which cues are most important
Achievement: When cue utilization closely matches ecological validity achievement will be high (when the perceivers reading of the environment closely matches the actual environment)
What did James Gibson mean by affordances in his ecological theory of environmental perception?
Affordances are instantly detectable functions. An object may offer or afford sitting, laying, resting or so on. These affordances are determined by substances (such as wood, steel, glass etc.) or surfaces (such as floors, walls, ceilings etc.).
Gibson argued that perception of affordances does not require us to interpret sensory information, construct reality, or weight cues, as in Brunswicks theory. - this theory is against the tradition that assigns an important role to the processing of information after it is gathered. - Gibsons theory refocus’s attention on the environment itself as a crucial element of perception.
Compare and contrast Brunswik’s and Gibson’s approaches to environmental perception.
Gibson’s and Brunswiks theories are similar in that both argue that we seek usefullness from the environment - Brunswik saw this as survivability whereas Gibson argued that we look for affordances or detectable functions from the environment.
While Brunwik argued that both perciever and setting had to be understood as seperate systems, Gibson found that the environments function was more based on the environment itself then our perceptions as we simply identified affordances within the environment. Finally Brunswik makes a stark contrast between environment and perceiver where Gibson does not.
Most importantly the theories differ in at least two ways: Brunswik sees perception as a process of probabilistic calculations that are influenced by the perceiver’s characteristics. In contrast, Gibson believes that perceptual “truth” lies in the environment (the information gathered by our senses provides an accurate picture of the world as it really is). Gibson also thinks that this truth could be perceived directly with little or no complex interpretation (perception becomes a process of the environment revealing itself to the perceiver).
Second, the two approaches differ on the nativism–learning continuum (Bell et al., 2001). Whereas Brunswik believes that perception is learned, Gibson thinks that perceptual responses are basically innate. Gibson believes that the functions of objects in the environment (i.e., affordances) can be discovered only through exploration and the efficient allocation of attention. Affordances are species specific. The same object can serve different functions for different species. For example, a tree can be a shelter for birds, food for certain insects, or fuel for humans. Perception involves the biological adaptation and functioning of organisms in their environment. Gibson’s approach is called ecological because it stresses the environmental facts that are most relevant to species’ biological adaptation, such as the location of vital resources and sex partners (McAndrew, 1993).
Outline Daniel Berlyne’s ideas about environmental aesthetics. How well has Berlyne’s view been supported by research findings?
Berlynes ideas about environmental aesthetics revolve around collative properties (characteristics that cause the perceiver to pay attention, investigate further, and compare). Belyne believed that these collative properties influence the perceivers aesthetic judgments of, and desire to explore, environmental ‘displays’. He proposed that collative properties do so via the psychological dimensions: hedonic tone (the amount of beauty or pleasure experienced) and uncertainty-arousal moderate complexity is considered better.
However research shows that buildings of moderate complexity are most preffered but become more comlicated with landscapes, in general research shows these relations to be more complex. Additionally, research has added additional collative properties such as fittingness (how well an object suits a certain setting).
Summarize the characteristics of the phenomenological approach to environmental perception.
The phenomenological approach has the following characteristics:
Emphasis is placed on the perceptions of an individual (or at least one individual at a time) rather than on group averages.
Phenomenolgists try to overcome or erase the distinction between the setting and perceiver.
The researcher is often the perceiver
Phenomenologists try to understand the unique and holistic meaning of a place qualitatively, as revealed by the place, rather than by resorting to external concepts or ideas.
Tries to understand the meaning and relevance of a place from those who know the place best.
According to the reading by Southworth, what characteristics contribute to sonic identity and sonic delight?
Sonic Identity: the uniqueness or singularity of local sounds in relations to others, their informativeness or the extent to which a places activity or spatial form was communicated by the sound
Factors that contribute: Most identifiable sound districts contain visible exterior activity, sounds that call up the character of a place, spaces seemed more meaningful and discernible when subjects could hear echoes of their own sounds, whereas ambiguous or busy areas were rated as less identifiable - the least informative information demand the most attention and are most prevalent. Sounds meant more when they stood out from the background and so did novel sounds.
Sonic Delight: the qualities of a sound that cause them to be liked or disliked - we tend to like low to middle frequency and intensity sounds. Delight increases when sounds were novel, informative, responsive to personal action, and culturally approved. However, sounds that were loud, close, and uninformative are experienced as unpleasing.
Again, according to Southworth, what roles do auditory and visual stimuli play in forming our image of the city? Does one kind of stimulation have a more significant role than the other?
Preferred stimulation allow involvement, but are also informative (intermediate), whereas less pleasing sounds are more attention demanding jarring and less informative (jackhammer or sirens). Contrast is often seen as pleasing for visual stimuli.
Stimuli for forming our image: visual experience is closely related to the sound that accompanies it. Both stimuli can complement each other, but may interfere with each other if incongruent.
Residents’ evaluation of a city’s soundscape was influenced by the sound level, the information the sound contained, and the context in which the sound was perceived. Furthermore, aural perception interacted with visual perception to give people a sense of involvement and comfort (Kang, 2007).
