Perception

Question 1

What are sensation and perception and how are they different?

Answer 1

Sensation (sensing) - a biological process of sensory organs sending information (stimuli) to your nervous system

Perception (interpreting) - organizing into meaningful patterns

Question 2

Give examples of sensation and perception

Answer 2

Sensation - taste buds, eyes, ears, skin, and nose

Perception - shapes, sounds, colors, sour, sweet, temperature, smelly, fragrant, etc.

Question 3

What are the gestalt principles and why are they useful?

Answer 3

Gestalt principles are principles of human perception that recognize the shapes and patterns in images including the complex ones. They are important because they allow people to see the shapes and patterns

1) Similarities - perceive things that look similar as belonging to the same groups

2) Proximity - perceive things close together as belonging to the same groups

3) Continuity - perceive things as a continuous pattern

4) Closure - the tendency to complete shapes/figures that are incomplete

5) Illusory shapes - perceive shapes/figures even when they don’t exist

6) Figure & ground - perceive objects as existing on the background

7) Reversible figure - visual illusion figure & ground can be reversed

Question 4

What is bottom-up processing?

Answer 4

Bottom-up theory = perception directs cognition

It is taking sensory information and you assemble it. Then you interpret it.

It is when you perceive small details (like broken lined drawings, different drawings of letter A’s, orientation, sizes, etc.) until you notice what they actually are in the bigger picture.

Question 5

What are the three theories of object recognition under bottom-up processing?

Answer 5

1) Template theory - a store template that recognizes an object by comparing it to patterns

2) Feature analysis - recognizing the objects by focusing on key critical features; objects are the same, but features (color, size) changed; features come together to form unique objects; a small number of features

3) Recognition by components - geons (shapes) and the relationship between geons

Question 6

What is the evidence for any of the three theories (template, feature analysis, and recognition by components)?

Answer 6

Brain research (physiological evidence)

Question 7

What is the Hubel & Wiesel study and which theory of object recognition does it provide evidence for?

Answer 7

They are famous neuroscientists who shaped how we think about perception.

Question 8

What is the top-down theory of perception?

Answer 8

Cognition directs perception. The top-down theory is when you see the bigger picture of something that has specific details that you are not expected to see.

Question 9

What is the difference between top-down processing and bottom-up processing?

Answer 9

The top-down theory is when you see the bigger picture of something that has specific details that you are not expected to see.

Bottom-up processing is when you perceive small details (like broken lined drawings, different drawings of letter A’s, orientation, sizes, etc.) until you notice what they are in the bigger picture.

Question 10

What are examples of how context, expectations, and memories shape perception?

Answer 10

Changed blindness and intentional blindness are two examples of this question.

Question 11

What is the superiority effect and how does it demonstrate top-down processing?

Answer 11

STAR
RTAS

Recognizing words better than non-words.

Question 12

What is changed blindness and how does it demonstrate top-down processing?

Answer 12

The changed blindness is when you don’t detect a change in the stimulus and it’s because of top-down processing.

It is when we can skim through the reading and know the actual words (even when they are misspelled). We are not expected to see the missing parts in front of you.

youtube.com/watch?v=bh_9XFzbWV8

Question 13

What is inattentional blindness and how does it demonstrate top-down processing?

Answer 13

It is when you do not see what’s in front of you because your attention is on something else. You have a block at the level of awareness.

Example: maroon walking across the room where people are passing the balls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

Question 14

When are you more likely to use top-down vs. bottom-up?

Answer 14

I am going to use top-down processing when I am reading a sentence, reading a letter, or looking at a picture that has patterns.
I am going to use bottom-up when I see colors and words that do not match, learning to read and being able to correctly differentiate the letters (b,d).

Question 15

When is top-down processing good and when is it bad? What are the examples from class and your examples?

Answer 15

After writing, I think that it is a bad idea to use top-down processing as someone reads the letter too quickly before sending it to someone else. It is a good idea for someone to read it very carefully or have someone read it for them to make sure there are no mistakes before sending the letter to someone.

Question 16

Is the Facial Perception (facial recognition) different from object recognition? What is the evidence to support this?

Answer 16

You can recognize facial features as holistic, while you can recognize objects as parts.

Question 17

How do disruptions to visual perception tell us something about perception? Is speech perception different than visual perception?

Answer 17

1) Visual agnosia - disruption of perception
2) Apperceptive - breakdown in early perception
3) Associative - breakdown later

Auditory is different from visual. For auditory perception, it is categorical so you can hear something in an in-between sound, our brain picks which one (word) it thinks it is. Facial recognition is more holistic. Visual perception is when you see the in-between words. Dyslexia would struggle to match the sounds and difficulty reading.

Top-down processing - auditory (They perceived the word even though it wasn’t actually said)
Bottom-up processing - phonetic awareness (it is very important for learning to read)

Question 18

What is phoneme restoration?

Answer 18

1) It was found that __eel was on the axle. (wheel)

2) It was found that __eel was on the shoe. (heel)

3) It was found that __eel was on the orange. (peel)

Question 19

Suppose that you walk past the home of your friend, John. Standing in front of the house is someone who somewhat resembles your friend, so you shout, “Hi, John!” To your embarrassment, it is not John but his younger brother—substantially shorter and with darker hair. This error can be traced to

1) serial processing.
2) parallel processing.
3) bottom-up processing.
4) top-down processing.

Answer 19

Number 4 for top-down processing is the correct answer.

Question 20

According to the word superiority effect,
1) we have trouble noticing when one of the letters in a word disappears from the stimulus.

2) we can recognize a letter faster and more accurately when it is part of a word, rather than standing alone.

3) we can recognize an unfamiliar word more quickly than an isolated letter of the alphabet.

4) bottom-up processing is more helpful than top-down processing

Answer 20

Number 2 is the correct answer. It says that we can recognize a letter faster and more accurately when it is part of a word, rather than standing alone.

Question 21

Would you consider the Gestalt principles of perception a bottom-up or top-down theory, why or why not? Explain the difference between bottom-up and top-down and at least 3 principles in your discussion.

Answer 21

I would consider the Gestalt principles of perception a top-down theory because we are letting our past experiences, memories, and expectation fill the image for us without image fully needing to completed/perfect already. The top-down theory will be that cognition directs and constructs perception. The top-down theory is when you see the bigger picture of something with specific details you are not expected to see. The three Gestalt principles of perception are figure and ground, reversible, and proximity.