Exam #2 Flashcards
The study of people’s tendencies to make hits, correct rejections, misses, and false alarms.
Signal-detection theory
The phenomenon that a stimulus can influence behavior even when it is presented so faintly or briefly that the observer has no conscious perception of it.
subliminal perception
Specialized neurons in the visual cortex that respond to the presence of simple features such as lines and angles.
Feature detectors
If you stare at a waterfall for a minute or more and then turn your eyes to nearby cliffs, the cliffs appear to flow upward
waterfall illusion
A field that emphasizes perception of overall patterns
Gestalt psychology
Bring in sensory information actually present in the stimulus
bottom-up process
You apply your experience and expectations to interpret each item in context
top-down process
Distinguish the object from the background
figure and ground
Figures that can be perceived in more than one way
reversible figures
Tendency to perceive objects that are close together as belonging to a group
Proximity
The tendency to perceive similar as being a group
similarity
When lines are interrupted, and we fill in the gap
continuation
When we imagine the rest of a figure (more complex than continuation)
closure
When we perceive objects as part of the same group if they change or move in similar ways at the same time
common fate
A simple, familiar, symmetrical figure
good figure
