Introduction to Perception Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, and theoretical concepts from the lecture transcript on perception.

Interoception

The process of understanding and perceiving the internal world inside our bodies, including physical sensations and feelings controlled by internal bodily systems.

Exteroception

The process of perceiving the external world outside of us, traditionally associated with visual, auditory, and mechanical senses.

David Foster Wallace

Author of Infinite Jest who delivered a famous commencement speech at Kenyon College in $2005$ featuring a fish anecdote to illustrate how obvious realities can be difficult to perceive.

Infinite Jest

A fiction book written by David Foster Wallace that is considered to be among the top $100$ fiction books ever written.

Camera Obscura

A device featuring a small hole through which light projects an image onto a surface, historically used as a model for the view that perception is direct and fully formed.

Empiricism

A philosophical position on epistemology asserting that knowledge is obtained only through perceiving the world.

Hermann von Helmholtz

Author of the three-volume Treatise on Physiological Optics in $1866$ who proposed that visual perception relies on physiological processes and unconscious inference.

Treatise on Physiological Optics

A three-volume work published in $1866$ by Hermann von Helmholtz that established perception as a physiological process that extends beyond sensory input.

Unconscious Inference

The automatic, internal contribution made by physiological processes to perceptual experience outside of conscious awareness.

Mechanical Touch

The specific aspect of bodily senses directed at perceiving external physical surfaces, distinguished from internal sensations like temperature and pain.

Autonomic Nervous System

The internal system that regulates bodily functions such as blood flow and neuroanterior activity, providing the foundation for interoceptive sensations.

Constructivist Position

The contemporary mainstream position in psychology holding that perception is actively constructed by internal bodily contributions rather than directly received from the outside world.