PSYC1003 Study Guide - Final Guide: Subjective Constancy, Motion Perception, Depth Perception
Sensation and Perception
Sensation
• Sensation - process by which sense organs gather information about the environment and
transmit it to the brain for initial processing.
• Sensation begins with an environmental stimulus; all sensory systems have specialised cells
called sensory receptors that respond to environmental stimuli and typically generate action
potentials in adjacent sensory neurons.
Perception
• Perception - process by which the brain selects, organises and interprets sensations.
• Sensory impressions are affected by context, experience, emotional states, motion, etc.
• Our perceptual experience is not an objective reproduction of what is out there, instead it is a
construction of reality that is manufactured by the brain.
Visual Perception
1.1 Basic processes - form, depth, motion and colour perception, and vision for action versus vision
for perception.
1.2 Object Recognition pg 152-161:
• Visual object recognition is experienced as an automatic and effortless process.
• With one glance, we normally not only recognise an object but also apprehend: the meaning
of the object, our prior associations with it and the uses for the object (vision for action).
• Yet visual experiences are rarely, if ever, repeated exactly:
o Objects level of illumination changes; shadows are cast.'
o Ojets are ieed fro differet perspeties, deped o the pereiers iepoit,
which changes.
o Objects with similar functions come in different shapes and sizes.
o Objects move.
o Objects are rarely seen in isolation, so that other objects occlude part of the object to
be recognised.
• Form perception – refers to the organisation of sensations into meaningful shapes and
patterns.
• Motion perception - the perception of movement, relies on motion detectors from the
retina through the cortex.
• Depth perception - is the organisation of perception in three dimensions; it is based on
binocular (visual input integrated from the two eyes) and monocular visual cues (visual
input from one eye).
• Gestalt principles – the Gestalt psychologists described several principles of form
perception → figure-ground perception, similarity, proximity, good continuation, simplicity,
closure.
• Biederman's recognition-by-components theory
o Biederman proposed that objects consist of basic shapes or components, known as
geos ad that there are aout 36 differet geos, eg: yliders, spheres, ars, et.
o Argues that eople perceive and categorise objects by first breaking them down into
elementary units.
• Perceptual constancy refers to the organisation of changing sensations into percepts that
are relatively stable. Three types:
o Colour (the tendency to perceive the colour of objects as stable despite changing
illumination).
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