cognitive psychology - perception

what is perception

• the processes involved in recognising, organising and making sense of the sensations we receive from the environment

• we sense the presence of a stimulus but we perceive what it is

  • Levine & Shefner 1981

what is the bottom up processing theory 1966 1979

• we should focus on real environments not 2D stimuli

• all necessary information can be picked up from the environment

• no need for mental processes/previous experience

who came up with the bottom up approach

• Gibson 1966 1979

positive of bottom up approach

• more ecologically valid than 2D images - texture, depth, motion interactions

negative of bottom up approach

• notion of affordances controversial

  • object possibilities for action - perception drives action

what is the top down approach 1957 1972

• the perceiver builds a cognitive understanding of a stimulus using sensory information as the foundation, but also using other sources of information to build the perception

• information from sensations are incomplete and imperfect

• mental representations are instead used to construct our perceptions

what else is the top down approach known as

• constructivist

• indirect

who were involved in the top down processing approach

• bruner 1957

• gregory 1972 - strong advocate

negatives of top down approach

• critics argue that although in some cases there is a direct relationship between modifying hypotheses and perception in other cases this is not so evident

• a truly constructivist approach would expect that the knowledge we have learned would modify our hypotheses in an adaptive manner

  • the current hypothesis testing theories cannot explain this lack of relationship between learning and perception

what is meant by flavour

• overall impression we experience from the combination of nasal and oral stimulation - Lawless 2001

• flavour = taste + olfaction

• flavour perception should be used as a term for the combination of taste, smell, trigeminal sytem, touch and so on

  • Auvrey & Spence 2008

what did Maxwell Mozell et al 1969 find about olfaction

• asked people to identify common foods with the nostrils opened or with the nostrils pinched shut

  • every food they tested was easier to identify in the nostrils open condition

what did Hettinger, Myers and Frank 1990 find about olfaction

• asked people to rate various qualities experienced when solutions (chemicals) were applied to the tongue with nostrils open or shut

  • found that oleate had a soapy flavour when nostrils open but judged tasteless when closed

  • ferrous sulfate normally has a metallic flavour but judged tasteless when nostrils were closed

how can vision influence flavour

• visual cues, including colour, shape and visual texture, have all received significant research attention in the context of food products, colour and shape have been the most frequently studied - Spence & Van Doorn 2022

• the case of the rounder, sweeter chocolate bar - Spence 2013

• colour indicates ripeness of fruit and vegetables and freshness of meat or sweetness of drink

• recent systematic review of 52 published studies concluded that visual cues can significantly affect flavour perception under certain conditions - Motoki et al 2023

what did piqueras-fiszman et al 2012 find about vision and flavour

• the same frozen strawberry mousse was rated as 10% sweeter, 15% more flavourful and significantly better liked when eaten from a white plate than a black plate

what did wan et al 2015 find about vision and flavour

• the shape of the glass influences the flavour associated with a coloured beverage differently in different countries

what did vickers & wasserman 1979 find about sound and flavour

• if the expected sound does not accompany eating then some quality is deemed to be lacking from the product

what did woods et al 2011 find about sound and flavour

• background sound unrelated to food diminishes gustatory food properties