Week 2

Question 1

Aristotle’s five senses

Answer 1

Touch, sight, smell, taste, hearing
-Separate module for each sense
Not a comprehensive list of all senses, e.g missing temperature, balance, ect

Question 2

Sense modalities:
Olfactory

Answer 2

Smell: food, pheromones, danger, ect

Question 3

Sense modalities:
Somatosensory

Answer 3

Touch: heat, position, pain, ect

Question 4

Sense modalities:
Auditory

Answer 4

Sound: words, threats, direction of noise ect

Question 5

Sense modalities:
Visual

Answer 5

Sight: objects, faces, reading

Question 6

Perception

Answer 6

Conscious high level processing of sensory information typically carried out in the prefrontal cortex

Question 7

Sensation

Answer 7

The automatic collection of sensory information coded through sensory organs

Question 8

Information Processing Approach

Answer 8

Information is processed in sequential stages passing information to different parts of the brain. E.g:
Sensory information (input) -> Mental operations (processing) -> Perception (output)

Question 9

Sensory system organisation

Answer 9

Hierarchical Organisation- information processed through least to most complex systems
Functional Segregation- different analysis specialisms
Parallel Processing- processed in multiple systems at once (used to be considered serial processed but model changed to parallel)

Question 10

Human eye structure:
Cornea

Answer 10

The protective layer at the front of the eye

Question 11

Human eye structure:
Iris

Answer 11

The ring around the pupil which contracts and dilates to control light input

Question 12

Human eye structure:
Pupil

Answer 12

The gap in the iris which allows light into the eye, allowing us to see objects

Question 13

Human eye structure:
Lens

Answer 13

The clear layer behind the pupil which changes shape depending on the distance from the object we are looking at, to bend the light so it hits the retina in the right place

Question 14

Human eye structure:
Retina

Answer 14

The light sensitive nerves which receive the light reflected off of objects

Question 15

Human eye structure:
Optic nerve

Answer 15

Carries signals from the retina to the brain

Question 16

Human eye structure:
Blind spot

Answer 16

The area where the optic nerve connects to the retina, creating a blind spot which cannot receive sensory information

Question 17

Human eye structure:
Fova

Answer 17

A depression in the retina where visual information is received most accurately

Question 18

Human eye structure:
Sclera

Answer 18

The whites of the eye

Question 19

Human eye structure:
Ciliary muscles

Answer 19

Control movement of pupil and lens

Question 20

Light & Visual perception

Answer 20

We can only see the visible light spectrum. Sunlight contains all colours in the visible light spectrum (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red). Objects absorbs all light colours except for the colours they are. E.g. Red objects reflect red light and absorb all other colours, we perceive the object as red as that is the light reflected into our eyes.

Question 21

Eye position dispartity

Answer 21

Animals have eyes in different places depending on purpose e.g. reptiles and prey have eyes further apart to expand their field of vision while predators have eyes as the front for better vision of details and depth

Question 22

Binocular disparity

Answer 22

The eyes each have a slightly different perspective, allowing the brain to combine these images to perceive depth

Question 23

Eye movement:
Fixations

Answer 23

The points which our eye movements briefly stop on (3 per second)

Question 24

Eye movement:
Saccades

Answer 24

The rapid movements between fixations, needed as visual neurons respond to change rather than consistent input

Question 25

Eye movement:
Stabilized retinal images

Answer 25

Static imagine inputs in our visual neurons cause the image to disappear

Question 26

Eye movement:
Temporal integration

Answer 26

The integration of fixations allowing us to see details, and stopping images disappearing when we blink.

Question 27

Duplexity theory

Answer 27

The retina contains rods and cones, which are thought to help with different types of vision e.g. cones for photobic (bright light) vision & focus in the fovea while rods are for scotopic (low light) vision & are mostly in our peripheral

Question 28

Visual areas of the cortex

Answer 28

Posterior partial cortex
Prestraite cortex
Primary visual cortex
Inferotemporal cortex

Question 29

Dorsal vs Ventrical stream

Answer 29

Both receive information from primary visual cortex
-Dorsal (top) originally thought to be “where” path but now thought to be behavioural control pathway
-Ventral (bottom) stream originally thought to be “what” path, now thought to be conscious perception pathway

Question 30

Prosopagnosia

Answer 30

Inability to recognise faces, may not be specific to faces, caused by in the fusiform face area

Question 31

Damage to the primary visual cortex

Answer 31

Damage causes scotomas (blind spots) which are plotted using perimity tests
Blind sight is when patients can respond to stimuli in their scotomas

Question 32

Gestalt’s Laws:
Law of Proximity

Answer 32

Objects close together are grouped

Question 33

Gestalt’s Laws:
Law of Similarity

Answer 33

Similar objects grouped

Question 34

Gestalt’s Laws:
Law of Symmetry

Answer 34

Symmetrical objects are grouped

Question 35

Gestalt’s Laws:
Law of Contiuations

Answer 35

Aligned objects perceived as one entity

Question 36

Gestalt’s Laws:
Law of Proximity

Answer 36

Objects close together are grouped

Question 37

Ambiguity

Answer 37

Causes multi-stable perception (images can be perceived in different/ changing ways)

Question 38

Depth perception

Answer 38

Enabled by binocular disparity, can detect absolute distance (distance from observer to object) and relative distance (distance between two objects)

Question 39

Cues:
Monocular cues

Answer 39

-Texture gradients
-Relative size
-Interposition (objects obscuring other objects)
-Linear perspective (parallels appearing to converge towards horizon
-Aerial perspective (closer images clearer)
-Location in picture plane (higher objects seem further)
-Motion parallax (closer objects appear faster)
-Further colours appear bluer

Question 40

Cues:
Binocular cues

Answer 40

Level of disparity interpreted as cue of depth, becomes less effective the greater the distance

Question 41

Influence of context

Answer 41

Context can make objects appear different to their actual size

Question 42

Global processing

Answer 42

Processing the parts of an image as a whole rather than focusing on individual details

Question 43

Local processing

Answer 43

Processing the parts of an image separately rather than as one entity