Chapter 9 - Perceptual Distortions

Question 1

Fallibility

Answer 1

the quality of being prone to error or experiencing difficulties in judgement

Question 2

Perceptual distortion

Answer 2

an error in the judgement or interpretation of sensory stimuli

Question 3

Visual illusion

Answer 3

the perception of a visual stimulus that conflicts with how it is in physical reality

Question 4

What causes visual illusions?

Answer 4

• something in our external environment (moon looks bigger closer to the horizon)
• something physiological (after a bright light)
• something psychological (biased reasoning)

Question 5

Example of visual illusion

Answer 5

Ames room
- Looks like a normal shaped room but is not, it’s longer in one corner, but you cannot see that so the people inside look very big and very small

Question 6

Agnosia

Answer 6

a disorder involving the loss or impairment of the ability to recognise familiar stimuli through the use of one or more senses, despite the senses functioning normally otherwise

Question 7

Supertasters

Answer 7

individuals who have significantly low thresholds for taste stimuli and an unusually high number of taste buds

Question 8

Miraculin

Answer 8

a type of protein extracted from the ‘miracle berry’ which alters taste perception in humans

Question 9

How does miraculin work?

Answer 9

Miraculin binds to the taste buds that are responsible for detecting sweet flavours and activates them when an acidic environment is created in the mouth

Question 10

Synaesthesia

Answer 10

a perceptual phenomenon characterised by the experience of unusual perceptions in one sensory system after another sensory system has been activated

Question 11

Characteristics of synaesthesia *5

Answer 11

• it’s relatively common
• automatic and cannot be controlled
• generally one-way
• usually consistent
• unique to the person

Question 12

Forms of synaesthesia

Answer 12

grapheme-colour = sees colours when looking at a word/number
sound-colour = sees colours when hearing a sound
lexical-gustatory = tastes something when they read a word

Question 13

Proposed explanations for synaesthesia

Answer 13

Don’t know! But…
- sensitivity to neural associations
- lack of synaptic pruning
- structurally unique brain

Question 14

Spatial neglect

Answer 14

an inability to perceive, report, or orient sensory information located within one side of space

Question 15

Ways to test for spatial neglect *3

Answer 15

• line bisection test (will put it a quarter of the way along not half way)
• target cancellation (will only do half)
• copying tasks (will only draw half)