AP Psych 2nd unit

UNIT 2
Perception

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Perception: active process of organizing and interpreting that information

  • Mental process of organising sensory input into meaningful patterns 

    • Key element to overall human experience

    • 2 general ways we interpret info- external and internal

Bottom-up Processing:

  • External processing of info

  • Idea is that we start the action of perception by noticing individual elements of a stimuli first, then zoom out to see the whole picture

    • Ex. “Oh this (small detail) is here? This (whole picture) is gonna suck”

  • Begins with sensory inputs, work up from smaller details to mentally organize everything to a “whole”

  • Use of context greatly used

    • Noticing parts first, then making sense of them 

  • Use of inductive reasoning- use of specific details to form broad generalizations


Context and Culture - External Factors

  • Context- circumstances that form setting for an event/statement/idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood/assessed

  • Culture- directs our attention, tells us what to notice, what’s funny, what’s offensive, how to interpret data

    • Cross-cultural studies have demonstrated this difference in perception based on cultural circumstances

    • Do we perceive information holistically or analytically? Some societies are more collective some are more individualistic

Top-down Processing:

  • Based on internal or existing expectations

  • Guided by our thoughts/higher level mental processes

    • Move from a general concept to specific examples

    • Creating perceptions by drawing on experiences and expectations

  • Whole picture→ look for a pattern to make meaning → then examine details

  • We use background knowledge to fill in gaps and make meaning

    • Ex. we can read words that are slightly misspelled

  • Use of deductive reasoning- begins with a general idea then develops evidence to support or refute it


Schemas and Perceptual Sets- Internal Factors

  • Schema- mental framework for organizing and understanding

    • Vary from person to person

    • What you think of when I say “dog” is based on experience

    • Assimilation- taking in new info but not changing schema

      • Relating new experience to a prior one + making connections

    • Accommodation- taking in new info and changing schema

      • Understanding that similar things are different

  • Perceptual set- refers to our tendencies to perceive one aspect of a thing and not another

    • Depend on our expectations

    • Letters with letters together, numbers with numbers

    • We can sometimes hear/see what we have come to expect

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Gestalt Principles:

  • Mind organizes stimuli into patterns, we see things as an organized whole

    • Whole is greater than the sum of its parts

  • Closure- making a whole/completed object by filling in gaps

  • Figure and ground- the figure is the object and the ground is the surroundings

  • Proximity-items close together group more easily than items far apart

  • Similarity- items that are more alike group more easily than items that are different

Attention:

  • Interaction of sensation/perception affected by internal and external processess

  • Selective Attention: 

    • Cocktail party effect- people attend to mentions of their names/specific topics in loud/distracting environments

    • Inattention can lead to a type of “blindness” to aspects of the environment

    • Inattentional blindness- when attention is focused on one part of the visual field, and as result you may ignore/miss other parts

      • Change blindness- type of inattentional blindness, occurs when differences/change in the visual field aren’t perceived due to inattention or brief interruption

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Visual Perception:

  • Depth perception- ability to see the world in  3 dimensions with ourselves as part of that experience.

    • Visual cliff experiment- used babies who could crawl to determine if we’re born with depth perception. Responses did demonstrate we’re born with depth perception

    • It’s possible to make both accurate and inaccurate interpretations of stimuli, tripping over things you don’t notice

    • 2 days we judge distance: binocular and monocular cues


  • Binocular depth cues- using both eyes

    • Retinal disparity- determining depth based on the difference between what each eye sees. 

      • Each eye sees something slightly different because of the variation of angles, image on each retina is a little different

      • Farther away something is = smaller difference between two eyes

    • Convergence- determining depth based on how much the eyes rotate inward. Closer something is, the more the eyes converge to middle

      • Brain senses tension of the eyes and processes that as “closeness”

  • Monocular cues- using one eye, like getting illusion of depth on flat surfaces

    • Relative clarity- clear object appears closer than blurry/fuzzy ones (usually based on moisture in air)

    • Relative size- things bigger to us seem closer

    • Texture gradient- closer objects have more detail, those farther away are less distinct

    • Linear perspective- parallel lines appear to converge as they get farther away

    • Interposition- the position and placement of objects. Closer objects will partially block objects farther away


  • Visual Perceptual Constancies

    • Maintain perception of an object even when aspects of an image in our visual field change

    • Color constancy- something keeps same hue even when light around it changes

    • Brightness constancy- something stays dim or bright

    • Shape constancy- dimensions of object stay the same despite changing angle

    • Size constancy- object maintains its proportion even if its farther away. Just because something looks small in perspective we know it’s not


  • Perceiving motion

    • Apparent movement- when we perceive movement even though objects are stationary- visual illusion

      • Phi phenomenon- lights seem to be moving but they’re just lighting up at various times. Ex. light up signs with “moving” graphics

      • Stroboscopic movement- happens with still images. A rapid series of slightly varying images. Ex. flipbooks

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Thinking/Problem Solving


Cognition- the act of thinking

  • Higher level mental activities by humans. Reasoning, abstract thinking, problem solving

  • Mental activity associated w/ thinking, knowing, remembering, communicating

  • Defines much of who we are/how we function + interact with others

Organizing Info:

  • We form concepts to make sense of our environment/experiences

    • Mental groupings: ex. Animals, dogs, greyhounds

    • Speaks to our schema

  • We also create category hierarchy to expand concepts

    • Ex. History= World, Us, Modern etc.

  • We also use the prototype: mental image of the best example of specific concept/category

    • Contains essential aspect of concept

      • Ex. think of fruit- apple comes to mind

    • Shaped by our social background, culture, language

    • Individuals create context and set of expectations that we apply to understand our world

  • Critical thinking- going beyond new info, developing opinions and beliefs about the info

    • Skepticism- questioning what one’s told

    • Imagining more about the information

    • Defining part of information

    • Examine evidence

    • Analyze your assumptions and biases

    • Don’t oversimplify

    • Consider other interpretations, it’s ok to be unsure

Creativity and Critical Thinking

  • Creativity- ability to produce novel and valuable ideas within any discipline

    • Art, music, architecture, math, science, engineering

    • Components: possessing a particular skill set and amount of intelligence

    • Ability to look at subjects from different perspectives

    • Adventurous personality

    • High levels of intrinsic motivation (motivation from within)

  • Environments can be designed to encourage/squash creative ideas

  • Two kinds of thinking also influence creativity: Convergent and Divergent Thinking

Convergent/Divergent Thinking

  • Convergent thinking- where a question only invites 1 correct answer, limits creativity

    • Ex. multiple choice questions

  • Divergent thinking- required when a question/problem can have several possible responses

  • Metacognition- active control and awareness of our own thinking

    • Cognitive steps we take

    • Biases we have

    • Approach to learning task

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Decision Making

  • Trial and Error- try solutions until 1 works, works best if there are relatively few possible solutions

  • Insight- seeing cause and effect relationship, or aha moment. Takes analysis and connections

  • Intuition- something we feel like we know without truly knowing yet. “Gut feeling” Implicit use of memories 

  • Algorithm- addresses problems by attempting all possible solutions until you find correct one

    • Ex. Following a recipe, going through every aisle to find a cold drink

    • Can’t solve too many subjective problems

  • Heuristic- using mental shortcuts to make judgements

    • Ex. when to cross the road, narrowing down which aisles to look for the drink

    • More error prone


  • Representativeness heuristic- can lead to error in judgement when decisions are made based on prior expectations/stereotypes

    • Decisions based on your prototype, ex. putting people in groups

  • Availability heuristic- can lead to error in judgement when decisions are made by recalling the first/most vivid example that comes to mind

    • Based on how quickly it comes to mind

    • Ex. News only reporting disasters even though they aren’t that likely


  • Decision making can be influenced by cognitive biases

    • Mental set- Approaching problem based on past experiences that were successful, even rejecting other possible solutions 

      • Confirmation bias- tendency to search for information that supports preconceptions and ignores/distorts contradictory evidence

      • Fixation- inability to see/define a problem from a new perspective

        • Fixation applied to creative thinking, hindering creative thinking, is called functional fixedness- thinking thinks only serve 1 purpose

    • Framing- Circumstances surrounding a decision

      • How something is worded/presented can influence an answer

      • False dichotomy- we set these up when we create 2 extreme positions without the middle ground

      • Priming- use of hidden cues to activate a response, phrasing a question to activate certain mental concepts eliciting a response

 

  • Cognitive processes like gambler's fallacy and sunk-cost fallacy can impact our decisions

    • Gambler’s fallacy- false belief that you can predict chance events based on past experience

    • Sunk-cost fallacy- bad decisions based on money, time, or effort that has already been spent

      • Deciding to go to a concert sick because you spent money on the ticket

Executive Functioning:

  • Set of cognitive skills essential to-

    • Organization, planning

    • Carrying out activities

    • Self-regulation

    • Critical thinking, decision-making

  • Linked with prefrontal cortex activity

  • Increase with age, then decrease with age. Highest function in adulthood


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Memory:

Explicit Memories:

  • With conscious awareness

    • Episodic- memories specific to our unique personal experience

      • First time my mom made salmon

    • Semantic- info we know, including specific facts/conceptual understandings

      • Knowing facts about salmon

    • Prospective- remembering to remember, memory of intent to do something

      • Remembering to get salmon today

Implicit Memories:

  • Without conscious awareness

    • Procedural- knowing how to do something

      • Knowing how to climb stairs

    • Classically conditioned responses- learned associations that evoke emotional/psychological responses

      • Anxious about dentist; associating dentist with discomfort

    • Primed responses- exposure to one thing may unconsciously influence our thoughts/behavior

      • Buying a specific brand unaware I was exposed to ads for the brand