Perceiving Objects

Question 1

When can it be hard to individuate objects?

Answer 1

A potential reason why it may be hard to individuate objects is when animals camouflage, do this to avoid predators by blending into the environment

Question 2

What are the three cues to individuate objects?

Answer 2

By their edges/luminance contrasts
By certain shapes and gestalt principles
By their cohesion/motion

Question 3

Edges are conveyed by luminance contrasts at both _______ and _______

Answer 3

Edges are conveyed by luminance contrasts at both low spatial frequencies (gross contours) and high spatial frequencies (details)

Question 4

Low spatial frequency processes what and is processed in what part of the brain?

Answer 4

Low spatial frequencies processes general gross contours and is tracked by the right hemisphere of the brain.

Question 5

High spatial frequency processes what and is processed in what part of the brain?

Answer 5

High spatial frequencies processes smaller details and is tracked by the left hemisphere of the brain.

Question 6

How are spatial frequencies defined?

Answer 6

Can be defined quantitatively by the amount of alterations of light and dark within one degree of the visual field- high spatial frequencies have a lot more alteration within detail and colors

Question 7

What are the cues within geometry?

Answer 7

Proximity, similarity, continuity, closure, area, symmetry

Question 8

When faced with a box in front of a rod, we would assume that the rod is?

Answer 8

We would assume that the rod is continuous and not broken down the middle behind the box. We assume continuity and continuous edges

Question 9

How can geometry be ambiguous?

Answer 9

As we assume things to be continuous, we may see continuous lines even when it is illogical to do so, such as when a perseon rides an animal we could initially assume the person has animal legs. Alternatively, some shapes can create more than one image.

Question 10

Think about the box in front of a rod. When four month olds see it static, are they surprised when they see the rod is continuous or when the rod is not?

Answer 10

They are not surprised by either- they see them for the same amount of time, suggesting that they did not have their expectations violated

Question 11

Think about the box in front of a rod again. When four month olds see the rod and the box moving, are they surprised when they see the rod is continuous or when the rod is not? Why?

Answer 11

The four month old stares at the non-continuous rod for longer, as they would assume that sense the rods moves at the same rate, they have cohesion and thus assume it as one individual object. Suggests that babies have early cohesion sensitivity and their expectations were violated

Question 12

Comparing features extracted from the environment to feature clusters stored in memory

Answer 12

Object recognition

Question 13

What did Treisman and Gorrmican claim about feature detection?

Answer 13

If a target pops out, it was considered an extra feature. The ones that do not stand out are default.

Question 14

What are the main problems with feature detection theories?

Answer 14

They ignore spatial relationships between features (square is more than a collection of lines, everything has an unique figuration)
They automatically assume that the visual system knows which features belong to which objects
Not everything that pops out of the visual search is a feature, such as faces or snakes which are more so a set of features

Question 15

Spatial configuration has been theorized in which ways?

Answer 15

3D structural description, 3D template

Question 16

Deriving and comparing structural descriptions

Answer 16

3D structural description

Question 17

Aligning and matching images with our own mental templates

Answer 17

3D template

Question 18

Basic units/simple shapes used to create all other shapes

Answer 18

Geons

Question 19

Break down a mug into geons.

Answer 19

Barrel shape/cylinder shape+ handle shape=mug

Question 20

When psychologists removed an entire geons (such as the cone of an airplane) compared to equal amounts of space in the midsections of lines, it was harder for participants to recognize?

Answer 20

The objects without geons were harder to recognize

Question 21

Assumes every perceived object is stored as a template while others are compared to these templates to find a match

Answer 21

Template matching theory

Question 22

What study results suggested template matching theory?

Answer 22

When viewing a novel object in new angles after seeing them from previously different views, we don’t recognize the objects and can’t define them about that, suggesting we didn’t break them down into geons to create an object in our brain to classify it as

Question 23

Are structural description and templates mutually exclusive theories?

Answer 23

No, structural descriptions and templates can both exist and be useful. Structural descriptions can help break down objects when they are at weird angles, and templates can potentially help us in situations where structural descriptions are sparse and we are seeing an image for the first time

Question 24

Does object recognition only apply to vision?

Answer 24

No, it was found that making random hand motions interfere with recognizing objects we frequently hold and handle