AP Psychology- Influences on Perception

perception

process of taking raw sensation from the environment and interpret them using knowledge, experience, and understanding of the world

perceptual failures/error

cases in which our perceptual experience of a stimulus differs from the actual characteristics of that stimulus

selective attention

focus on what we think is relevant and ignore everything else; filtering out and attending only to important sensory messages

feature detection

neurons are sending information to the brain to build an image

habituation

boredom of a stimuli

past experiences, emotions, attention, and expectation bias

big factors on how we perceive a stimulus

cocktail party effect

how we can perceive our names amongst numerous other sounds

inattentional blindness

allows us to focus on stimuli occurring in one part of the environment while ignoring stimuli in another part; focusing on stimuli that are more captivating

change blindnesss

failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness

overt orienting

involves shifting attention by pointing sensory systems at a particular stimulus; physically shifting your attention to something else

covert orienting

shifting attention in your mind

attention

the process of directing and focusing psychological resources to enhance perception, performance, and mental experience

voluntary attention

goal-oriented attention; occurs when you purposely focus it

involuntary attention

bottom-up processing; stimulus-driven attention; occurs when a stimulus in the environment captures attention

multitasking

a skill that allows ones to divide attention and do more than one thing at a time

dichotic listning task

occurs when different messages replayed into each ear

same type of energy

we are not good at dividing attention when it comes to the usage of…

top-down processing

quicker way of processing information; stimuli connect what we see to what we except to see

Gestalt principle

the tendency to integrate pieces on information into meaningful wholes

figure

brings meaning; it is what is being attended to in the figure-ground organization

ground

anything that is considered to be in the background of the figure-ground organization

depth perception

the ability to perceive three-dimensional space and accurately judge distances

binocular cues

visual inputs from two eyes that allow perception of depth or distance

retinal disparity

binocular cues to distance where the separation of the eyes cause different images to fall on each retina

convergence

binocular cue in which the closer an object is, the more your eyes move inward

monocular cues

visual input from a single alone that contributes to perception of depth or distance

motion parallax

the difference in the apparent movement of objects, closer objects appear to move faster than objects farther away

accommodation

bends light to the retina

interposition

closer objects block the view of things far away

relative size

if two objects are assumed to be the same size, the object producing a larger image on the retina is perceived as closer

height in the visual field

more distant objects are usually higher in the visual field than those nearby

texture gradient

a graduated change in the texture, or grain, of the visual field; texture appears less detailed as distance increases

clarity, color, and shadow

distance objects often appear hazier and tend to take on a bluish tone; objects are seen as three-dimensional because of shadows