AP Psychology Topic 2.1 - Perception

Apparent Movement

When something looks like it’s moving even though it’s not (like lights blinking in a pattern that looks like motion).

Attention

Focusing your awareness on certain things while ignoring others.

Binocular depth cues

Clues about how far things are that require both eyes, as each eye sees a slightly different image.

Bottom-up processing

The cognitive process where understanding builds from actual sensory input, such as shapes and colors, up to meaning

Change Blindness

Not noticing big changes in a scene because your attention is focused elsewhere.

Closure

Your brain filling in gaps to see a complete image, even if parts are missing.

Cocktail party effect

The ability to focus on one voice or sound in a noisy environment, like picking out your name in a loud room.

Cognition

All the mental processes related to thinking, knowing, remembering, and problem-solving.

Context

The situation or background in which something happens that helps you understand it.

Convergence

A depth cue that comes from how much your eyes turn inward to look at something close.

Cultural Expectations

Beliefs or behaviors we learn from our culture that influence how we see or understand things.

Depth Perception

The ability to judge how far away something is or see in 3D.

Expectations

What you believe or predict will happen, which can influence what you notice or perceive.

External sensory information

Signals from the outside world (like sights, sounds, smells) that your brain takes in through the senses.

Figure-and-ground perception

Recognizing an object (figure) as separate from the background (ground).

Gestalt psychology

A way of thinking that says we see whole forms or patterns, not just small parts.

Grouping

The brain's way of organizing things into groups based on similarities, patterns, or proximity.

Inattentional blindness

Not seeing something right in front of you because your attention is elsewhere

Internal prior expectations

What your mind already believes or expects, which can shape how you perceive new things.

Interposition

When one object blocks part of another, it looks closer to us

Linear perspective

A depth cue where parallel lines appear to meet in the distance (like railroad tracks).

Monocular depth cues

Clues about depth that only need one eye, like size or shadows.

Perception

How your brain interprets and makes sense of what you see, hear, and feel.

Perceptual constancy

Recognizing objects as the same even if they look different under different lighting or angles

Perceptual set

A mental readiness to see things in a certain way based on experience or expectation.

Proximity

Things that are close together are seen as a group.

Relative clarity

Objects that are clearer and more detailed look closer than blurry ones.

Relative size

If two objects are usually the same size, the smaller one looks farther away.

Retinal disparity

The slight difference between what your left and right eyes see, which helps with depth perception.

Schema

A mental framework or pattern that helps you understand and organize information.

Selective Attention

Focusing on one thing while ignoring other distractions.

Selective Inattention

When you purposely or unknowingly ignore something, often because you're focused on something else.

Similarity

Things that look alike are seen as part of the same group.

Texture Gradient

The more detail you see in a surface, the closer it appears; less detail makes it look farther away.

Top-down processing

Using what you already know, believe, or expect to make sense of what you’re seeing or experiencing.

Visual perceptual processes

The steps your brain takes to understand what your eyes are seeing