Kap. 3 - Perception and Mental Imagery

What does it mean to say that perception is a “construction of the mind”?

Perception

• “The ability to recognize and interpret information from the senses“

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Construction of the mind

• “The very act of perceiving involves making sense of the raw stimulation conveyed by our senses“

  • Making sense by:

    • piecing together a coherent, stable, mental representation

• The mind fills in missing pieces

  • Like perceiving the whole picture with only a few puzzle pieces

• E.g.

  • Modal completion

    • Where view of the illusory object is not obstructed, and there is no objective boundary between the illusory object and the background

    • a)

  • Amodal completion

    • See, to perceive an object despite an apparently obstructed view

    • b)

  • 
    

What is the distinction between top-down and bottom-up processing?

Top-down processing

• Knowledge and expectations influence and enhance our interpretation of sensory input

• E.g. - interpreting ambiguous images

  • Context shapes perception

  • Experience shapes perception

    • Unconscious inference —> Educated guesses based on visual cues

      • (top-down guesses bases on bottom-up information)

• E.g. - making predictions

  • Predictive coding

    • Visual brain makes predictions about what input the eyes are about to receive

      • Ongoing comparison of expectations with bottom-up information

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Bottom-up processing

• Sensory input (“raw data”) influences perception

Give examples that illustrate the challenges of object segmentation, occlusion, and inverse projections in everyday vision

Object segmentation

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Object occlusion

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Inverse projection

What are the different types of visual constancy that perception achieves?

What is the distinction between apperceptive and associative agnosia?

Define and contrast view-based approaches and structural description approaches to object recognition

What is the evidence distinguishing what and where pathways?

What evidence suggests that the what/where distinction might be better thought of as a perception/action distinction?

What is the mental rotation test, and how does performance change as a function of the angle of rotation?

Define and contrast the depictive view and the propositional view of mental imagery

What is the neuropsychological patient evidence supporting a tight relation between mental imagery and perception?

What is the brain imaging evidence supporting a tight relation between mental imagery and perception?