Psychology 100 Lecture 4 PDF

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Psychology 100: Perception Psychophysics • Psychophysics is the study of the relationship between ________ stimuli and how they are _________ • Our sensory systems are extremely sensitive – e.g. photoreceptors in our retina can respond to a single photon of light, but we can’t ‘see’ that! • There is always ‘______’ in every ‘______’ • We also have expectations and biases! – are we expecting to see something? are we paying attention?

‘Subliminal’ Perception? • Can our brains process and make use of information that we cannot consciously ‘see’ or ‘hear’?

The Gestalt School • The brain receives information from the senses composed of essentially meaningless stimuli that it must then try to make sense of • The Gestalt School of Psychology was created in the early 20th century to study how we create meaningful ‘_______’ out of these fragmented sensory stimuli (the ‘______’) • The word Gestalt is German for ‘whole form’ “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts!”

Gestalt Grouping Principles • The most famous of the Gestalt principles is that of __________ grouping • In grouping, different aspects of objects (e.g. shapes, angles, lines) are transformed into meaningful ‘whole’ objects

• There are 4 principles by which we group: – Closure – __________ – Proximity – Good continuation

Depth Perception • Images that fall on our retina are in ___ dimensions, yet we perceive the world in ___ dimensions (e.g. as having depth) • Our _______ creates this sense of depth! • This ability develops at around 9 months of age We use both eyes when viewing an object, but our eyes are separated by a short distance • More convergence is required when an object is near • This feedback to the brain from the eye muscles is an important cue for depth

Monocular Depth Cues • Binocular depth cues are only relevant at _____distances – when we view objects at longer distances there is no ___________ • Several monocular (____ EYE) depth cues are important for sensing depth at longer distances: – Relative size – ________ perspective – Interposition

Relative Size • We assume that each flower is approximately the same size • The flowers in the foreground cast a larger image on our

_____, providing a sense of depth As the girl on the right walks down the bridge, her image becomes smaller on our retina • But we (accurately) perceive her as being the same size regardless of where on the bridge she is! Perception • What do you see here? • Adults see something very different from children • Why would a child see something different?...