subliminal

main idea of subliminal

• “like playing a game and someone whispers a message so softly that you couldn’t hear them, but your brain still picked up the message even though we aren’t aware of it”

• the usage of stimuli that is below our conscience awareness, but still affects our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

examples

• george w. bush for president ad (2000), flashing the word “rats at the end. “democrats”

• a hidden message in an ad that makes you want to buy something

what to remember for the ap exam

• subliminal = below our awareness: we don’t notice hearing or seeing something because it’s too quick or faint.

• it’s weak: subliminal can’t make you do big things, big decisions. it can only affect low-stakes decisions.

  • our strong conscience thoughts usually makeup from the subliminal influences.

• stimuli: any object or event

• threshold of awareness: the point where you notice the stimuli in our conscience minds

• priming: when seeing one stimuli affects how you respond to another stimuli, regardless if the first stimuli was a subliminal

summary

think of it like a soft breeze 💨, you only notice it sometimes. but it’s never strong enough to push you over.

perceptual set

main idea of perceptual set

• it’s like “wearing glasses that consist of what you expect to see, how you’re feeling, and what we experienced before, but instead it’s on your brain.”

• it’s when your brain past expectations, experiences, or emotions help shape how you see or comprehend stimuli.

how does perceptual set work?

• our brain makes attempts at guessing at what were witnessing based on what we already know.

examples

• seeing a blurry picture and someone says, “that’s a dog!”, but you see something else. maybe a cat.

• being hungry and seeing something that represents round and brown, and thinking it’s a cookie, but instead it’s a rock.

what to remember for the ap exam

perceptual set: the mental “filter” that makes what we see or comprehend things based on what we expect.

influences on perceptual set:

• expectations: what you think will happen.

• emotions: if you’re scared then you’ll assume something harmless as something that could danger you.

• context: the situation changes how you interpret things. like “ seeing a strange thing in the sky looking like a astroid, but it’s just a balloon.

• bias: what is more favored

summary

it’s like your brain searching for a treasure map 🗺, but instead the “X’ changes based on what we feel, experienced, and expectations.

inattention blindness

main idea of inattention blindness

when you’re so focused on one thing that you completely miss something else that is in front of you.

example

• remember the video of a group of people playing basketball and not noticing a bear walking through them because you’re so so used on counting how many times the group passed the basketball.

what to remember for the ap exam

• selective attention: focusing on one thing and ignoring the other.

• change blindness: when you don't notice changes in your environment because you're not looking for them.

• inattention blindness: when your attention is on one stimuli, but not noticing the other interfering obvious stimuli.

• main goal: our brain has a limited amount of attention span.

• selective attention: focusing on one thing and ignoring the other.

• change blindness: when you don't notice changes in your environment because you're not looking for them.

summary

like playing hide and seek, but you’re more focused in looking under the bed that you don’t notice someone hiding in plain sight.

change blindness

main idea of change blindness

you don’t notice something has changed in your environment because you’re not paying attention to it.

examples

• remember the video experiment where someone was asking for directions and a door becomes between them, and they switch the man with someone else that looks similar. many didn’t notice that they switched.

what to remember for ap exam

• change blindness: it’s when we don’t notice the changes in our environment (big or small) because our attention is on something else.

• key idea:

  • brain doesn’t process everything in our environment.

  • it only pays attention to things that we find importance in.

• selective attention: focusing on certain things and ignoring others.

• inattentional blindness: not noticing something obvious because you’re attention is somewhere else.

summary

like when someone swaps puzzle pieces 🧩, but you don’t notice it because you’re focused on the whole picture!