PSYCO104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Psychophysics, Fire Hydrant, Binding Problem

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO104
• Professor: Geoff Hollis

Document Summary

Study relationships between stimulus and perception, ignoring sensation and brain function. Invariatns are properties of mathamatical entities that remain even as the entity itself is transformed in various ways. Both physchophysics and gestalt approaches converge on the idea that we can largely ignore the brain in studying perception, because we percieve invarient properties of stimulus around us. We are good at determining if we can jump over a given puddle, or whether there is enough clearance in an opening to pass through. (within mm) Automatically, we can compute the trigonopic properties of what we see to tell the (di)similarity of height of objects at various distances determined from relative angles. Where gestalt and phychophysical approaches begin to have complications. Objects grouped together are seen as a whole. We tend to ignore gaps and complete contour lines - see note. There are components between the experience and the perception of the experience which will alter the way someone percieves the world.