unit 2 - perception and cognition Flashcards
inattentional/perceptual blindness
from lack of attention not associated with vision, an individual fails to perceive a stimulus in plain sight
a form of selective attention
top-down vs. bottom-up processing?
when we use top-down processing, we perceive by filling in gaps in what we sense. top-down processing occurs when you use your background knowledge to fill in gaps in what you perceive. bottom-up processing, we use only the features of the object itself to build a complete perception. we start our perception at the bottom with the individual characteristics of the image and put all those characteristics together into our final perception.
perceptual set
the mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not the other
a cognitive bias, taking in sensory data we want and ignoring the otherse.g, do you see a rabbit or a duck?
what is the binding problem?
from the specialized cells —> feature detectors
we do not know how the brain combines these features to make a single percept
perceptual consistency
the tendency to perceive objects as unchanging despite lighting, distance, angle…cognitive process that helps with identifying objects
colour and brightness constancy
size constancy
shape constancy
figure & ground (laws of form perception)
organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings
law of closure
looking at incomplete images as wholes by filling in the gaps
law of similarity
tend to group similar objects together
law of proximity
grouping objects together when they are close to each other
law of continuity
preferring percepts that are in continuous figures, or connected, opposing to disconnected ones
law of common fate
tendency to group similar objects that share common motion/destinatione.g, school of fish, flock of seagulls
law of pragnanz
tendency to perceive and interpret complex images in the simplest form possible
prototype
mental image or best example of a category
assimilation
to incorporate new experiences into existing mental structures
accommodation
when a child’s theories are modified based on new experiences
divergent thinking vs. convergent thinking
dt: expanding the number of possible solutions to a problem
ct: narrowing the solutions to the best single solution
schema
concept/framework that organizes and interprets info
set of ideas/concepts that can be used to view a problem
what is the lowest level of cognition?
trial and error
mental set
like a schema, a way of thinking that has worked well in the past
does not work well with new problems
heuristics
makes it easier for us to use simple principles to arrive to solutions
simple-thinking strategy
more error-prone than algorithms
insight
theory by wolfgang kohler
sudden realization of problem’s solution
this contrasts strategy based solutions
a burst of neural activity is called a?
insight
what are the 2 types of heuristics? (and characteristics of each)
representativeness heuristic:
judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they match our prototype
availability heuristic:
judging the likelihood of things based on how easy something comes to our memory, making us believe it is common
what is functional fixedness?
not being able to see that an object can be used in different ways
algorithms?
methodical, logical rule that guarantees solving a particular problem
confirmation bias
due to our own personal opinions, we start seeking out answers that confirms our views
hindsight bias
“i knew it all along”after the outcome we believe that we knew all along
belief perserverance
the tendency to believe in wrong beliefs despite being presented with concrete evidencea cognitive bias
what is the framing effect?
the way an issue is framed can significantly affect our decisions and judgements
a cognitive bias
we tend to prefer positively framed things over negatively framed things, even though they are essentially the same thing
e.g, 80% lean over 20% fat
priming
how exposure to a certain stimulus can affect a later stimulus on responses without conscious awareness
concept hierarchies
collection of objects/events with commonalities that are ranked from broad to specific tendency to cluster similar items together to remember them more efficiently
stereotype threat
when a person feels at risk of conforming to negative stereotypes about his or her race.e.g, females are generally more bad at math, —> can lead to poorer results
