PSYCH101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Depth Perception, Railways Act 1921, Ames Room

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: Paul Wehr

Document Summary

Perception - the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts. Don"t add things up as we see it. The whole is not equal to the sum of its parts. Our thoughts and preconceptions shape what we perceive. We don"t perceive reality; reality may be out there in the abstract, but our perceptions are our take on reality. We do not see exactly what is out there, our perceptions are shaped bu our thoughts. We see through the lens of our thoughts and preconceptions. We perceive things that aren"t really there. Figure is what stands outs, ground is what is behind that is not being perceived at the moment that you are looking at it. According to the gestalt psychologists, exactly the same stimuli produces two radically different perceptions. The whole cant be equal to the sum of its parts because you cannot get two different answers from the same part.