Unit 4: Perception & Psychophysics Flashcards
Perception
Process of organizing & interpreting sensory info
Allows us to recognize meaningful objects/events
Sensation
Process by which sensory receptors and the nervous system receive and represent info from the environment
Top down
Make perceptions using a few cues, our schemes, and experiences
We fill in details to see things as complete
Bottom up
Step by step analysis of each object, and then trying to piece the pictures together
Selective attention
Focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus
Cocktail party
Can only listen to ONE VOICE at a time while in a crowd
Psychophysics
Relationships between outside energy in our environment & our psychological processing of the energy
Absolute threshold
Minimum amount if energy needed to detect a stimulus (50% of the time)
Credited by Gustavo Fechner
Signal detection theory
Explains psychological factors in the judgement of sensory stimuli
LOW response criterion
Many false alarms
Few misses
Not much evidence to make judgements
HIGH response criterion
Less false alarms
More misses
Needs more evidence to make judgements
Subliminal stimulation
Stimulus below perceptual threshold but above sensory threshold
*individual wants to subconsciously do what the message is saying
Priming
Giving little cues to bias you
Often sexual - hinted to make someone do something
Difference threshold / just noticeable difference
Minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection
Weber’s Law
In order for 2 stimuli to be noticeably different there must be a constant percentage if difference
The more intense the stimuli the harder it is to tell the difference
