click below
click below
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Psychology 6
6 Perceiving the World
Term | Definition |
---|---|
• Perception | How we assemble sensations into meaningful patterns |
• Bottom-up processing | Analyzing information starting at the bottom (small units) and going upward to form a complete perception |
• Top-down processing | Pre-existing knowledge that is used to rapidly organize features into a meaningful whole |
• Selective attention | is used to focus on one activity in the midst of many activities, eg. listening to a friend at a loud party |
• Divided attention | is used to complete two or more tasks simultaneously, eg. Talking on the phone while surfing the web |
• Inattentional blindness | Failure to perceive a stimulus that is in plain view, but not the focus of attention |
• Figure–ground | Part of a stimulus stands out as an object (figure) against a plainer background (ground) |
• Similarity | Stimuli that are similar in size, shape, color or form tend to be grouped together |
• Size constancy | Perceived size of an object remains constant, despite the size of the image on the retina changing |
• Shape constancy | The perceived shape of an object is unaffected by changes in its retinal image |
• Brightness constancy | Apparent brightness of an object stays the same under changing lighting conditions |
Depth Perception | • Definition: Ability to see three-dimensional space and to accurately judge distances |
Perceptual Learning | • Process by how experience can change the way we perceive sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch. |
• Other-race effect | Tendency to be better at recognizing faces from one’s own racial group than faces from other racial or ethnic groups |
• Context | Information surrounding a stimulus; affects perception |
• Frames of reference | Internal standards for judging stimuli |
• Illusion | Length, position, motion, curvature, or direction is constantly misjudged |
• Hallucination | When people perceive objects or events that have no basis in external reality |
• Stroboscopic movement | Illusory motion perceived when objects are shown in rapidly changing positions |
Extrasensory Perception (ESP) | • Purported ability to perceive events in ways that cannot be explained by known capacities of sensory organs |
• Parapsychology | Study of ESP and other psi phenomena (events that seem to defy accepted scientific laws) |
• Proximity | Stimuli that are near each other tend to be grouped together |
• Closure | Tendency to complete a figure so that it has a consistent overall form |
• Continuity | Perceptions tend toward simplicity and continuity |
• Common region | Stimuli that are found within a common area tend to be seen as a group |
• Visual cliff | Apparatus that looks like the edge of an elevated platform or cliff on one side and a tabletop on the other |
• Retinal disparity | Discrepancy in the images that reach the right and left eyes |
• Stereotopic vision | 3-dimensional sight; perception of space and depth caused by the fact that the eye receives different images |