Perception

Sensation

Basic information your sensory neurons/senses detect and send to your brain

Perception

The process our brain uses to organize and make sense of the information sent from our sense, influenced by our past experiences and knowledge/beliefs

Gestalt Principles

Set of rules explaining how our brain puts separate things we see together, so we recognize them as one thing or as another group

Proximity

The Gestalt grouping principle that describes grouping things that are close together

Similarity

The Gestalt grouping principle that describes grouping things that are similar together, such as the same color, shape, size, etc.

Closure

The Gestalt grouping principle that describes how our brain fills in missing parts of a shape so we see it as complete

Continuity

The Gestalt grouping principle that describes how we see things following a smooth line or curve as one continuous path

Hierarchy Processing

The different stages of brain processing, with each stage building on the previous one

Bottom-Up Processing

Starts with basic details from our senses and puts them together to recognize what we’re sensing

Top-Down Processing

The brain using what we already know, what we expect, and the context to make sense of information from our senses

Experience-Dependent Plasticity

The brain’s ability to change how it processes information from our senses throughout life, based on what we repeatedly experience

Figure-Ground

The Gestalt principle that describes how our brain separates the object we’re focusing on from the background around it