Module 2

• Visual perception


  The process of making sense of the many stimuli that enter our eyes and fall on our retina
• Distal object


  The object in the external world
• Informational medium


  The medium that carries information, e.g. sound waves, light waves, chemical molecules, tactile information
• Proximal stimulation


  The stimulation of the sensory receptors, e.g. the cells in the retina absorbing light waves
• Perceptual object


  What you perceive, the image formed in your brain that reflects the properties of the external world
• Views on how we perceive the world

  • Bottom-up theories
  • Top-down theories
• Bottom-up theories


  Perception starts with stimuli that appear through the eye, data-driven
• Top-down theories


  Perception is driven by high-level cognitive processes, existing knowledge, and prior expectations
• Bottom-up theories of form and pattern perception

  • Direct perception
  • Template theories
  • Feature theories
  • Recognition-by-components theory
• Direct perception


  The information in our sensory receptors, including the sensory context, is all we need to perceive anything
• Template theories


  We have stored templates, highly detailed models for patterns we potentially might recognize, and we recognize things by comparing them to our templates
• Feature-matching theories


  We attempt to match features of a pattern to features stored in memory rather than to match a whole pattern to a template or a prototype
• Recognition-by-components (RBC) theory


  We quickly recognize objects by observing their edges and then decomposing them into geons, simple 3-D geometric shapes
• Constructive perception


  The perceiver builds a cognitive understanding (perception) of a stimulus using sensory information as the foundation and other sources of information
• Attention


  Our ability to focus on specific aspects of our environment at the exclusion of others
• Central executive


  Controls attention, tells us where to focus our attention and can hone in on specific aspects of a stimulus
• Selective attention


  Voluntarily focusing on specific sensory input from our environment
• Arousal theory


  When our arousal level is low, we could go to sleep or fall into a coma
• Lavie's load theory of attention


  We can attend to task-irrelevant stimuli when engaged in low-load tasks, but high-load tasks do not leave us any resources to process other stimuli
• Consciousness of mental processes


  The level of consciousness varies for more complex mental processes
• Differing views on conscious access

  • People have good access to complex mental processes
  • People's access to complex mental processes is limited
• Preconscious information


  Data outside of conscious awareness but can be accessed or summoned when needed, including stored memories and sensations
• Priming


  A psychological phenomenon where presentation of a first stimulus influences the perception or judgment of a second stimulus
• Types of priming

  • Positive priming
  • Negative priming
• Conscious vs. preconscious processing

  Priming can occur even when the priming stimulus is presented too briefly to be consciously registered, suggesting preconscious processing is at play