Chapter 6: Perception

Question 0

Selective Attention

Answer 0

the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect.

Question 1

Perception

Answer 1

the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events

Question 2

Cocktail Party Effect

Answer 2

is your ability to attend to only one voice among many (though let another voice speak your name and your cognitive radar will instantly bring that voice into consciousness).

Question 3

Inattentional Blindness

Answer 3

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.

Question 4

Change Blindness

Answer 4

inattentional blindness (gorilla in room, directions)

Question 5

Change Deafness

Answer 5

: inattentional deafness (list of challenging words, voice change)

Question 6

Change-Blindness Blindness

Answer 6

: blindness to the phenomenon (picture change)

Question 7

Pop-Out Phenomenon

Answer 7

: when a strikingly distinct stimulus, such as a smiling face in a crowd of crying people, draws our attention. Not our choice.

Question 8

Illusions

Answer 8

reveal the ways we normally organize and interpret out sensations.

Question 9

Visual capture

Answer 9

: the tendency for vision to dominate the other senses.

Question 10

Gestalt

Answer 10

: an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Question 11

Figure-Ground

Answer 11

: the organization of the visual field (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground). (arrows/men going down staircase)

Question 12

Grouping

Answer 12

the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.

Question 13

Proximity

Answer 13

we group nearby figures together. We see not six separate lines, but three sets of two lines.

Question 14

Similarity

Answer 14

we group together figures that are similar to each other. We see the triangles and circles as vertical columns of similar shapes, not as horizontal rows of dissimilar shapes.

Question 15

Continuity

Answer 15

: we perceive smooth, continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones. This pattern could be a series of alternating semicircles, but we perceive it as two continuous lines—one wavy, one straight.

Question 16

Connectedness

Answer 16

because they are uniform and linked, we perceive the two dots and the line between them as a single unit

Question 17

Closure

Answer 17

: we fill in the gaps to create a complete, whole object. Thus we assume that the circles are complete but partially blocked by the triangle. Add nothing more than little line segments that close off the circles and now your brain stops constructing a triangle.

Question 18

Depth Perception

Answer 18

he ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-​dimensional; allows us to judge distance.

Question 19

Visual Cliff

Answer 19

: a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.

Question 20

Binocular Cues

Answer 20

: depth cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence, that depend on the use of two eyes.

Question 21

Retinal Disparity

Answer 21

: a binocular cue for perceiving depth: By comparing images from the two eyeballs, the brain computes distance—the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object.

Question 22

Convergence

Answer 22

: a binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object. The greater the inward strain, the closer the object.

Question 23

Monocular Cue

Answer 23

depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone.

Question 24

Phi Phenomenon

Answer 24

: an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession

Question 25

Perceptual Constancy

Answer 25

perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change.

Question 26

Perceptual Adaptation

Answer 26

in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Question 27

Perceptual Set

Answer 27

a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

Question 28

Human Factors Psychology

Answer 28

: a branch of psychology that explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be made safe and easy to use.

Question 29

Extrasensory Perception (ESP)

Answer 29

: the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input. Said to include telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.

Question 30

Parapsychology

Answer 30

​: the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis.

Question 31

Relative size

Answer 31

If we assume that two objects are similar in size, we perceive the one that casts the smaller retinal image as father away.

Question 32

Interposition

Answer 32

If one object particular blocks our view of another, we perceive it as closer.

Question 33

Relative clarity

Answer 33

Because light from a distant objects passes through more atmosphere, we perceive hazy objects as farther away than sharp, clear objects.

Question 34

Texture gradient

Answer 34

A gradual change from a coarse, distant texture to a fine, indistinct texture signals increasing distant. Objects far away appear smaller and more densely packed.

Question 35

Relative height

Answer 35

We perceive objects higher in our field of vision as farther away, because we perceive the lower part of a figure ground illustration as closer, we perceive it as a figure.

Question 36

Relative motion

Answer 36

As we move objects that are actually stable may appear to move. If while riding on a bus you fix your gaze on some object like a house the object closer than the house appear to move backward

Question 37

Linear perspective

Answer 37

Parallel lines, such as railroad tracks, appear to converge with distance.

Question 38

Light and shadow

Answer 38

Nearby objects reflect more light to our eyes