VISUAL AND PERCEPTION

• process by which our sensory receptors detect and respond to stimuli from the environment

  SENSATION
• process by which our brain organizes and interprets these sensory signals to create our subjective experience of the world around us

  PERCEPTION
• The five senses are sight, sound or hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The five senses are associated with a sense organ, each of which is responsible for sensing the environment and sending that information to the brain where it is interpreted as a sense.

  SENSATION
• • distinguished between sensations vs. perceptions
  • Number of dots (sensations) create our perception of a face
  • Perceptions occur by adding up sensations

  STRUCTURALISM
• movement is perceived but nothing is actually moving.

  ILLUSION OF MOVEMENT
• • Apparent movement can’t be explained by sensations because there is nothing in the dark spaces between flashing lights
  • The whole is different than the sum of its parts

  APPARENT MOVEMENT
• Appear real but have no physical edge

  ILLUSORY CONTOURS
• • The perceptual system’s job is to determine the object ‘out there’ that created the image called the inverse projection problem – involves starting with the retinal image and extending rays out from the eye.
  • can see that a partic image on the retina can be created by a no. of diff. objects in environment

  THE STIMULUS ON THE RECEPTORS ARE AMBIGOUS
• environmental rock sculpture’ is designed to fool us by creating a special condition (viewing from specific place)
• • although may take searching, people can easily identify objects that are partially hidden by other objects
  • able to use their knowledge of environment to determine what's likely to be present

  OBJECTS CAN BE HIDDEN OR BLURRED
• computers don’t find it as easy as humans to recognize the same object from diff. angles

  OBJECTS LOOK DIFFERENT FROM DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS
• ability to recognize objects from diff. viewpoints

  VIEWPOINT INVARIANCE
• process of grouping visual elements together (organization) so that one can more readily determine the meaning of the visual as a whole (perception)]
• principles of PERCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION

  PROXIMITY

  SIMILARITY

  CONTINUITY

  CLOSURE

  CONNECTEDNESS
• Tendency to perceive objects that are close to each other as a group.

  PROXIMITY
• the way we automatically group objects together by a common feature, such as color or shape.

  SIMILARITY
• the tendency to follow lines when we look at an object

  CONTINUITY
• the perception of completeness even when the object is not complete.

  CLOSURE
• the tendency to group objects together that are connected by lines, color, or shape

  CONNECTEDNESS
• • points that when connected result in straight or smoothly curving lines are seen as belonging together, and the lines tend to be seen in such a way as to follow the smoothest part
  • also states objects that are partially covered by other objects are seen as continuing behind the covering object

  GOOD CONTINUATION
• • also called the principle of good figure or the principle of simplicity
  • states: every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible.
  • Olympic symbol is an ex

  PRAGNANZ
• states similar things appear to be grouped together grouping also occurs in auditory stimuli.

  SIMILARITY
• states things that are near each other appear to be grouped together

  NEARNESS (PROXIMITY)
• • states things that are moving in the same direction appear to be grouped together
  • can work even if the objects in a group are dissimilar
  • key is that group of objects are moving in the same direction

  COMMON FATE
• • states elements that are within the same region of space appear to be grouped together
  • overpowers proximity cause it would predict that nearby circles would be perceived together.

  COMMON REGION
• • a connected region of the same visual properties such as light, colour, texture or motion, is perceived as a single unit (Palmer & Rock, 1994)
  • overpowers proximity

  UNIFORM CONNECTEDNESS
• "eye to brain” we allow the stimulus itself to shape our perception, without any preconceived ideas

  BOTTOM-UP PROCESSING
• we use our background knowledge expectations to interpret what we see.

  TOP-DOWN PROCESSING
• characteristics of the environment that occur frequently

  REGULARITIES IN THE ENVIRONMENT
• regularly occurring physical properties of the environment

  PHYSICAL REGULARITIES
• • most of the objects in our environment like building and aspects in nature like trees are seen as horizontal or vertical.
  • Rarely do we see slanted objects, and therefore we can perceive these objects better.

  OBLIQUE EFFECT
• we assume that light is coming from above, because light in our environment, including the sun and artificial light usually comes from above.

  LIGHT FROM ABOVE ASSUMPTION
• defined as characteristics associated with functions carried out in different types of scene

  SEMANTIC REGULARITIES
• when we picture an object, we generally picture it within a setting. This setting is a scene schema

  SCENE SCHEMA
• characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different types of scenes

  SEMANTIC