VISUAL PERCEPTION Flashcards
perception definition
Our experience of the outside world.
• What we see appears ‘complete’, but our mental re-creation of the world is not completely accurate.
• Although seems effortless, perception is hugely complex!
– Derived from array of external information (e.g., light)
– Influenced by internal states/experiences (e.g., arousal, past experience etc.)
Why study visual perception?
• Visiontypicallyconsideredthemost important/useful of the human senses
> 80% of information received through visual modality
• Substantialamountofourbraindevotedto processing visual information
~50% of cortex involved in visual processing
The action and structure of the eye
- Muscles in iris adjust size of pupil to let in more/less light
- Image focussed on to the retina by the lens
- Retina contains photoreceptor cells (rods & cones) that convert light into electrochemical signals that can be interpreted by the visual cortex
Primary Visual Pathway
- Retinal information carried to visual cortex, in occipital lobe, via optic nerve
- Axons partially cross over at optical chiasm and passes through lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)
- Information then projected to primary visual cortex
Two-streams hypothesis
Ventral and dorsal streams
Processing of visual information takes place in different visual pathways
Ventral stream: ‘what’ pathway (object recognition)
Dorsal stream: ‘where’ pathway (spatial location) or ‘how’ pathway (guides movement)
General
Direct processing of environmental stimuli; data driven
Stimulus > Attention > Perception
General
Processing of environmental stimuli is influenced by expectations (past experience, prior knowledge)
Stimulus > Attention + Prior knowledge > Perception
Marr’s (1982): how you get from a 2D retinal image to a 3D
‘perception’
– Primal sketch:
• Raw primal sketch is detection of gradient, edges & boundaries (i.e., sudden changes in light intensity)
• Full primal image is group of boundaries to give outlines/features which are then compared to original retinal image
– 2.5D sketch: adds depth, motion & shading from perspective of the viewer
– 3D sketch: adds object recognition to provide full 3D representation that is stable independent of the viewer angle & comparable to stored visual information
Gregory’s (1970; 1997) constructivist approach
We apply our stored knowledge of the world to interpret visual information.
Constructivist theories see perception as:
– an active process rather than simply sensation
– influenced by experience and individual differences
Perceptual organisation - Gestalt Theory - Outlines general principles of perceptual organisation
What is experienced is much more than incoming information
– The whole is other than the sum of its parts (‘gestalt’ is German for ‘form’ or ‘shape’)
It is not the individual elements but the relation of each with the other that is important
• We can fill in gaps in information to create a whole, ‘unified’ perception independent of its component features
Perceptual organisation - Gestalt Theory - Figure ground relations/ segregation
- world is made up of objects against background
- need to identify figure from its background
- it is easiest to distinguish boundaries of objects where colour/ light changes
- ambiguous figures exploit this distinction
- Rubin’s vase (1915)
Perceptual organisation - Gestalt Principles - Proximity
items close together are grouped
Perceptual organisation - Gestalt Principles - Similarity
items that look ‘similar’ are grouped
Perceptual organisation - Gestalt Principles - Continuation
preservation of continuity over abrupt change
Perceptual organisation - Gestalt Principles - Closure
preferencefor‘closed’over‘open’figures
Perceptual organisation - Gestalt Principles - Evaluations
- Mainly based on theory rather than experimental evidence
- Descriptions of processes rather than explanations
- Identifies many but not all perceptual laws