uwo psych 1115 lecture 1

perception

the conscious experience of objects and object relationships

problem of perception

you can get evidence of perception when people don't have a conscious experience - you can perceive things even if they do not make it to consciousness

attributes of perception

continuous, corresponds to objective measurement, selective, adaptive

continuous

there is no stimulus or vision when eye is moving directions, so you are unable to take information in

corresponds to objective measurement

if something is measurable, our perception will go along with the objective measurement - meaning we will perceive the brighter and more intense stimulus than the less bright and less intense stimulus. We will see what is right in front of us as our perception reflects what is going on in the world

selective

we do not fully perceive everything in our environment - some things are perceived easier than others and we can select what we want to perceive. Opposite of all or nothing, some things may be perceived more than others

adaptive

we perceive what we need to perceive - for example wavelengths and a car on the street - not radio waves as they are low level perception don’t give useful information to humans.

responsive to patterns

assumes everything we see, we understand through past exposure, and builds our future perception of the external world

metatheory

a set of untestable assumptions about the world, which form a framework for subsequent scientific behaviour - a set of assumptions of how the world works, and study the world based on these assumptions

Mind-Body problem

Plato and Aristotle attempted to solve this problem, with the main question being, “Are the mind and body two separate entities or the same?”

Dualism

Plato and Aristotle invented the term Dualism - meaning that the mind and body are indeed two separate entities - the issue was that with this way of thinking, humans would not be able to accurately study behavior

Monism

later proposed this idea, the mind and body are not separate entities

theories

are not valid unless you can test them - evaluate whether it is right or wrong and allows us to make predictions

two branches of science

theory building and empirical research

theory building

creating or developing statement that drives hypothesis - to show how/why phenomenon occurs

empirical research

process of testing through experiments to see if theory makes sense

dependent variable

what happens as a result of the independent variable - probability of saying yes or no - any measurable behavioural variable

independent variable

variable manipulated by experimented - has levels (how many different settings of and independent variable) often governed by intensity of stimulus