The psychology of perception and misperception Flashcards Preview

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Flashcards in The psychology of perception and misperception Deck (19)
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1
Q

What is the difference between sensation and perception?

A
  • Sensation = process of detecting presence of stimuli by sensory organs
  • Perception = recognition, integration and interpretation of raw sensory info/stimuli
2
Q

What are the two theories of perception?

A

Bottom-up

Top-down

3
Q

What does the bottom-up theory suggest?

A

Perception is a direct process that is determined by the information that is presented to the sensory organs. This basic information is then used to build up a meaningful representation of the scene.

Allows us to identify:

  • texture gradients
  • perceiving motion
  • horizon ratios
4
Q

What does the top-down theory suggest?

A

Simple sensory information is insufficient in explaining perception. Top-down theory argues that perception is an active process that is influenced by our knowledge and expectations of the world.

5
Q

What are the two approaches in measuring perception?

A
  • Behavioural
  • Physiological
6
Q

What are th two most widely used behavioural techniques for studying perception?

A
  • Phenomenological method
  • Psychophysical method
7
Q

What is the phenomenological method?

A
  • Qualitative measurements ‘say what you see or feel’
  • Descriptive info
  • Important as perception not reliably objective
8
Q

What is the psychophysical method?

A
  • Quantitive relationships between stimulus and perception
  • Measures thresholds, whether or not stimulus detected
9
Q

What is an absolute threshold?

A

The minimum intensity required for the senses to perceive stimulation, at least half of the time

Not reliable across individuals/situations

10
Q

What is subliminal priming?

A

Involves presenting stimuli at speeds which do not allow for conscious recognition of the target.

When presented with affective stimuli, individuals are able to guess, more accurately than chance would predict, the valence of -ve stimuli.

11
Q

List factors affecting perception

A
  1. Personality
  2. Emotion
  3. Motivation
  4. Perceptual set/Expectations
  5. Demographic
  6. Attention
  7. Physiological
12
Q

How does personality affect perception?

A

People with different personalities show a tendency to behave differently in different situations.

It also appears that some aspects of personality can have an effect on perception (e.g. introverts have more sensitive visual perception and are better at perceptual tasks that require sustained attention than extroverts.)

13
Q

How does emotion/psychopathology impact on perception, specifically in depression and anxiety?

A
  • Depression - perceive ambiguous info more negatively, report pain as worse
  • Anxiety - show enhanced perception for threatening information
14
Q

How does motivation impact on perception?

A

People are often likely to perceive information as relating to their needs. (e.g. Therefore, sometimes patients may overestimate the benefits of a particular treatment).

15
Q

How do expectations impact perception?

A

Context, expectations and past experience all effect our interpretation of the perceptual information that we receive.

We are prone to seeing what we expect to see and hearing what we expect to hear (e.g. If we are trying to stop smoking everywhere we look we will notice stimuli connected with smoking).

16
Q

How does demographic impact perception, particularly age, gender and culture?

A
  • Age – Older people are less able to ignore irrelevant information and selectively attend to specified information than younger people.
  • Gender – males have better visual acuity in daylight conditions, while females’ vision adapts more quickly to the dark.
  • Culture – individuals from cultures who take part in ceremonies that involve hanging from steel hooks embedded in their backs report feeling no pain. Less spectacularly, individuals from Western cultures appear to be more susceptible to visual illusions.
17
Q

What happens in agnosia?

A

individuals with this disorder are able to see accurately, but have an inability to make sense of visual information.

18
Q

What is fluent aphasia?

A

Arising typically as a result of brain damage, fluent aphasia results in production of fluent speech in the absence of the ability to comprehend words.

19
Q

How does attention impact on one’s ability to perceive?

A

The vast majority of sights, sounds, etc., pass us by without becoming part of our conscious awareness. On the whole, in order for us to receive information we must pay attention to that which is most pertinent.