Perception

Perception- organization of/processing of incoming sensory info

BottomUp Processing - brain processes info without prior expectations; face value (sensations)

TopDown Processing - The brain already expects what the stimuli are going to be; uses context clues (perception)

Schemas - mental shortcuts people use to make expectations for stimuli using past experiences

Perceptual Set- what we expect to receive from our senses influences what we experience

Attention- the state of consciously focusing on a task or incoming stimulus

Selective Attention- only paying attention to the “most important” thing at one time (can’t multitask)

Cocktail Party Effect-when there is a lot of stimuli, one thing stands out or activates our attention; such as our name or a phrase (ex surrounded by conversations that we can’t identify until we hear our name)

Inattentional Blindness- when we have selective attention to one thing and mistakenly miss other incoming stimuli we could listen to or see (Invisible Gorilla test)

Change Blindness - inattentional blindness where we miss changes in our environment

Gestalt Psychology - focuses on how we view the whole picture of a situation instead of the parts; five principles are: closure, figure and ground, similarity, proximity, and continuation

Closure - brains fill in the gaps and finish incomplete images or words

Figure and Ground (figure-ground) - brains tell the difference between objects and their surroundings (ex: cocktail party effect is auditory →convo is figure and background noise is ground) 

Grouping -brains organize stimuli into groups or patterns following Gestalt principles 

Proximity- brains perceive objects close together as a group 

Similarity - brains perceive objects that look alike as a group

Depth Perception- visual determination of how far away an object is

Visual Cliff - an experiment used to test depth perception in infants and animals see below 

Binocular Cues - depth perception cues that require both eyes

Convergence - binocular cue where both eyes turn in to focus  on an object close to our face; the farther away, the less the eyes need to turn in to see it

Retinal Disparity- eyes are a few inches apart so they have differing views of objects; the closer an object is the more difference (disparity) there is between the eyes’ images

Monocular Cues - depth perception cues that only require one eye

Relative Clarity - we can see more details, and clearer sharp shapes for objects closer to us; farther away is more hazy

Relative Size - if we know two objects are the same size, the one we see as bigger is closer to us

Texture Gradient- we can see more texture and small details on objects closer to us; farther away, they aren’t as precise

Linear Perspective - parallel lines we perceive as coming together in the distance; can indicate distance

Interposition - we perceive objects that block other objects as closer; objects being blocked must be farther back

Perceptual Constancies- we perceive the elements of objects such as shape or size as staying the same even as other stimuli change

Color Constancy - we perceive an object as one color in all different light environments

Perceptual Adaptation - brain adjusts to changes in stimuli and adjusts it’s perception of “normal” (ex: smell adjusts to the smell of cigarettes after a long time living with them)  

Apparent Motion- optical illusion where objects that are viewed quickly one after another or objects that are still while others move seem to be moving

Stroboscopic Movement - in motion pictures or movies, we trick the brain into thinking we are seeing motion when it is just photo frames played in rapid succession; smooth movement

Phi Phenomenon - in Christmas lights or neon signs, blinking lights seem to show motion, but our brain knows it is spaced apart enough not actually to be moving

Autokinetic Effect- when a solid ray of light is pointed at a wall in an otherwise dark room, it will seem to be moving if you stare at it long enough