PSYCH - unit 2.1/2.2

Perception and Thinking

Selective Attention

focusing on a specific stimulant and tuning out other things

cocktail party, inattentional and change blindness are subsets of this

inattentional blindness

missing something right in front of you because you’re focusing on something else

Change Blindness

failure to notice a change (door example w guy who changes)

perceptual set

when you’re predisposed to see a certain thing —> top down processing

gestalt

ways to organize what you see

figure ground

organizing into the figure and the background —> interchangable

5 other gestalt principles

proximity, closure (filling gaps), similarity, continuity, connectedness

depth perception

ability to judge distances

retinal disparity

BINOCULAR DEPTH CUE —> difference between the images in your eyes, if its very different, the thing is close to you

convergence

BINOCULAR DEPTH CUE —> when your eyes go inwards when looking at something close

5 monocular depth cues

Relative size, interposition (blocking other objects), relative clarity, texture gradient, linear perspective

stroboscopic motion

type of apparent motion, basically js flip books!

phi phenomenon

type of apparent motion, when lights flash at a certain speed we perceive it as motion

perceptual constancy

when we know that an object is the same even when it looks different (ex, door looks smaller at different angles)

perceptual adaptation

ability to adjust to an obstructed perception - ex upside down goggles.

executive function

ability to make and organize plans and carry them out

schemas

mental groups of similar things, ex what is a chair

prototypes

mental image of the BEST fir for a schema, ex. dining room wood chair

assimilation

way to incorporate new information into a schema, so your schema stays the same you just discover a new thing that goes into it

accommodation

this is where your actual schema changes to incorporate new things.

convergent thinking

ability to narrow down multiple answer choices to just one correct answer, like the SAT test.

Divergent thinking

thinking creatively to come up w many solutions, ex. how many uses are there for a brick

algorithm

step by step procedures that guarantee a solution ex. trying every combination of numbers for a password

heuristics

simpler thinking strategies, like shortcuts (can be flawed)

insight

aha moment where you have a sudden realization of the answer

fixation

inability to think of a problem in a different way

mental set

a type of fixation, observing a problem in only one way bc thats what worked in the past.

intuition

an effortless automatic feeling that aids us in everyday decisions

representative hueristic

flawed way of judging likelihood based on a stereotype ex. smart short guy who reads a lot of books, bus driver or ivy league professor?

availability heuristic

judging the likelihood of events based on recent memory, ex. if a terrorist attack just happened your going to be way more scared that it will again

belief perseverance

tendency for people to continue to believe what they always have even when there is evidence against it, geos w confirmation bias

framing

presenting something in a specific way so it can significantly impact decisions and judgement

nudging

framing something in a way for people to make a certain decision