Ch.3, Perception

Question 1

Inverse Projection Problem:

Answer 1

the image on the retina could be made by multiple objects and its based on the perception to what to make of the object; top down processing and bottom yup processing help us decide what the object is, NEED BOTH
task of determining the object responsible for a particular image on the retina:
there is no way to reverse/deconstruct the whole of the stimuli: it is presented to your visual system as a whole

Question 2

Viewpoint Invariance:

Answer 2

people’s ability to recognize an object even when it is seen from different viewpoints

Question 3

Difference between sensation and perception

Answer 3

Sensation: stimulation of the sensory receptors and organs
Perception: organizing sensory input into representations of the physical stimulus, GIVES MEANING TO SENSORY INPUTS (light of different wavelengths = become colors, sound waves of different frequencies = become pitch, for example giving meaning to a childhood toy)
Depending on how you view something, your perception changes and it can be subject

Question 4

How Visual Info Enters the Brain

Answer 4

Eye—thalamus—visual cortex (cerebral cortex)

Question 5

Thalamus:

Answer 5

“relay” station, most sensory info goes through thalamus first, then sends it to the corresponding lobe for that sense, DIRECTION STATION in the medial part of the brain, NOT part of the cerebral cortex

Question 6

Optic Chiasm:

Answer 6

crossing point where visual info from the right visual field info goes to the left hemisphere at the first entry point of the brain (AND VICE VERSA)

Question 7

V1-V5 visual processing

Answer 7

V1: primary visual cortex, early stages of processing, lines, spatial frequency, VERY BASIC, contrasts (V2 is kind of an extension of V1)
V3-5 IS VERY SPECIIFC, BEFORE THIS THEY ARE VERY BROAD: V3: where we perceive form/shapes/
V4: color and form (mostly length)
V5/MT: picks up on motion

Question 8

What happens if you didn’t;t have V1 processing?

Answer 8

IF YOU DONT HAVE V1 YOU CAN’T CONSCIOUSLY PERCEIVE THE OBJECTS, BUT YOU CAN STILL IDENTIFY THE OBJECT;
Damage to the adult, primary visual cortex (V1) causes severe visual impairment that was previously thought to be permanent, yet several visual pathways survive V1 damage, mediating residual, often unconscious functions known as “blindsight.?

Question 9

What pathway

Answer 9

WHAT AM I SEEING?
Ventral (bottom) part of the brain through the temporal part of the cortex (ALL AREAS ARE INTERCONNECTED)
Travels through V3, V4, and V5
Occipital to temporal lobe
Vision for perception: identifies the objects and gives them a label
Different aspects of object perception
Goes through fusiform area, which also aids in facial recognition

Question 10

“How Pathway”

Answer 10

OCCIPITAL TO PARIETAL
Vision for action because it guides our movements
Allows us to interact with the object we see: doesn’t care about the identity of the object, but cares about spatial judgement
Visual guidance for movements top of the brain

Question 11

Titchener Illusion

Answer 11

Report the size difference between circles when theyre surrounded by larger circles
Visual effect is larger for the visual system than the motor (MOTOR SYSTEM IS MUCH LESS IMPACTED BY THE ILLUSION THAN THE VISUAL SYSTEM)

Question 12

Bottom-Up Visual Perception, Low Level to High Level

Answer 12

Bottom up processing: begin at the bottom with the physical stimulus (observable form/pattern), then move up to higher-order cognitive processes EMPHASIS ON PHYSICAL STIMULI
BASIC SENSORY ELEMENTS ATE COMBINED TO PRODUCE A PERCEPTION THAT WE EXPERIENCE AS A WHOLE

Question 13

Parallell vs. hierarchal processing

Answer 13

Hierarchal Processing, Complex Feature Detectors EXAMPLE IS V1-V5 PROCESSING
Detect simple to complex features: from lower to higher areas of the brain
Combine multiple inputs and fire only when they receive specific patterns
Paralell Processing
Many types of feature dictators process different aspects of environment in parallel
Color, brightness, texture, distance, movement are all being processed parallel to one anotheR: PRODUCES A UNIFIED PERCENT
How pathway + what pathway = unified percept of the world
WE USE BOTH

Question 14

Problems with Bottom Up Processing

Answer 14

Inverse Projection Problem: problem of determining the object that caused a particular image on the retina when objects are creating the same image on the retina (
For example, an image of a circular disk could be produced by a flat disk viewed at an angle, or by a cylindrical object viewed head-on)
Impossible to solve using only bottom-up information ^^^^
Many argue that perception is more thna just patterns of neurons firing

Question 15

Top-Down Processing

Answer 15

Begins with high level cognitiv processes, existing knowledge and prior expectations influence perceptions
Perception is impacted by factors beyond patterns of receptors firing
Formulate perceptual hypothesis
Examine features to check hypotheses
Recognize stimulus (MORE IMPORTANT THAN STEPS: RECOGNIZE THAT PAST EXPERIENCE CHANGES OUR INTERPRETATIONS)
Knowledge and experience can change how we experience and perceive objects
Bottom up processing may not be the whole story (loaf of bread location example)

Question 16

Helmholtz, Theory of Unconcious Inference

Answer 16

Von Helmoltz proposed this theory to explain how we decide among the possibilities (recall the inverse projection problem)
We decide by making unconscious inferences about sensory inputs, OUR BRAIN FILLS IN THE UNKNOWN DETAILS without conscious awareness

Question 17

Gestalt, Law of Continuity:

Answer 17

: when things are linked together, would make a straight or smoothly curved continious line are seen as belonging together

Question 18

Law of similarity, Gestalt

Answer 18

Law of Similarity: group things that are similar together

Question 19

Law of proximity

Answer 19

Law of Proximity: elements near one another tend to be perceived as belonging together

Question 20

Law of closure

Answer 20

Law of Closure: tendency to clos edges or fill in gaps in an incomplete figure to make it more complete

Question 21

Perceptual Constancy:

Answer 21

tendency to experience the same stable perception despite changes in sensory input; otherwise we’d have to rediscover what something is with change in lighting and distance

Question 22

Context Effects:

Answer 22

surrounding environment impacts pervption; context in which something appears influences our expectations, which in turn impacts our perception

Question 23

Likelihood Principle, Helmholtz

Answer 23

states that we perceive the object that is most likely to have caused the pattern of stimuli we have received; uses unconscious inference in which our perceptions are the result of unconcious assumptions that we make about the environment
The likelihood principle states that the visual system prefers the most likely interpretation of a stimulus, whereas the simplicity principle states that it prefers the most simple interpretation.

Question 24

Speech Segmentation:

Answer 24

ability to tell where one word in a conversation ends and the next one begins

Question 25

Transitional Semantic Probabilities

Answer 25

Transitional Probabilities: the likelihood that one sound will follow another within a word

Question 26

Pragnanz/Law of Pragnanz/Principle of Good Figure/Principle of Simplicity:

Answer 26

good figure, states that every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible

Question 27

Wertheimer and bottom up principles of perceptual organization

Answer 27

RULES PROPosed by gestation psychology to explain how small elements of a scene or a display became perpetually grouped to form larger units

Question 28

Bayesian Inference

Answer 28

Thomas Bayes, our estimate of the probability of an outcome is determined by (likelihood the extent to which available evidence is consistent with the outcome)
1. prior probability (initial belief about the outcome of something, WHAT YOU BELIEVE BEFORE EVIDENCE)
2. likelihood of the outcome (extent to which available evidence is consistent with the outcome, WHAT YOU BELIEVE EVIDENCE )
use this to explain events as to why you’re coughing (belief that it might be the common cold, research and see that it likely is, believe that common cold is what you have)

Question 29

How do Helmholtz, Regularities Theory and Bases theory all advocate for top down processing?

Answer 29

Helmholtz, regularities, and Bayes all have in common the idea that we use data about the environment, gathered through our past experiences in perceiving to determine what’s out there, TOP DOWN PROCESSING

Question 30

How is gestalt psychology a form of bottom up processing?

Answer 30

Gestalt Psychologists contradict this: principles of organization are built in, perception is affected by experience, but built in principles can override experience, thereby assigning bottom up processing a central role in perception

Question 31

Landmark and Object Discrimination Problems

Answer 31

WHAT PARTS OF THE BRAIN ARE INVOLVED IN EACH
Object Discrimination Problem: inability to recognize objects after being shown them after some delay (temporal, perception, fusiform)
Landmark Discrimination: inability to remember the location (parietal, somato-motor)

Question 32

Size Weight Illusion:

Answer 32

when a person is presented with two similar objects, the larger one seems lighter when they are lifted together (because we predict the larger one will be heavier

Question 33

Why is the inverse projection problem bad?

Answer 33

The inverse projection problem is a fundamental challenge in perception psychology. It underscores the complexity of the brain’s ability to interpret sensory information and highlights the importance of context and prior knowledge in perception. To overcome the inverse projection problem, the brain uses various cues, such as depth cues, texture, and context, to infer the properties of objects in the environment.

Question 34

Regularities theory, top-down processing

Answer 34

Regularties in Environment: physical and semantic regularties
Physical Regularties: regularly occuring physical properties of the environment; people can perceive horizontals and verticals mor eeasily because they are more common in the environment (OBLIQUE EFFECT)
Light-From-Above Assumption: we usually assume light is coming from above, because most light in our environment is coming from above
Humans are able to perceive and regonize objects/scenes better than computers because our system is adapted to respond to the physical characteristics (regularities) of our environment

Question 35

EXPERIENCe dependent plasticity

Answer 35

Prior knowledge and experience and evolutionary programming influence perception: TOP-DOWN CONCEPT

Question 36

Apparent/movementPhi phenomena

Answer 36

The so-called phi phenomenon is an illusion of movement that arises when stationary objects—light bulbs, for example—are placed side by side and illuminated rapidly one after another.
Perceptual system cannot understand the “darkness” so we ignore it because the dark background isn’t moving

Question 37

Semantic regularities vs scene schemas

Answer 37

Semantic regularities are the characteristics associated with the functions/ ACTIONScarried out in the different types of scenes. Scene schema the knowledge of what a given scene typically contains.

Question 38

Mackay Late Selection, Treisman Attenuator, Broadbent’s Early Selection

Answer 38

Mackay: even unattended stimuli can impact perception EVERYTHING PASSES THROUGH, then filtration happens very late
Broadbent: unattended information is COMPLETELY BLOCKED OUT IN THE PERCEPTION PROCESS
Treisman: attenuator analyzes the info based on its meaning and then filters it through to the detector (processes it through to either short term or long term memory)

Question 39

grandmother cell and specifity coding

Answer 39

The idea of grandmother cells describes a hypothetical neuron which encodes and responds to a highly specific but complex stimulus, such as one’s grandmother

Question 40

Problems with specifity coding

Answer 40

Not enough neurons to respond individually to every single person/place/thing
Does not explain responses to new objects