| Term | Definition |
|---|
| selective attention | focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect |
| inattentional blindness | failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere |
| visual capture | tendency for vision to dominate the other senses |
| gestalt | organized whole |
| figure-ground | organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (ground) |
| grouping | perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups |
| depth perception | ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance |
| visual cliff | laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals |
| binocular cues | depth cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence, that depend on the use of two eyes |
| retinal disparity | binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing images with two eyeballs, the brain computes distance- greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object |
| convergence | binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object |
| monocular cues | depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone |
| phi phenomenon | illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in a quick succession |
| perceptual constancy | perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change |
| perceptual adaptation | in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field |
| perceptual set | mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another |
| extrasensory perception (ESP) | controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition) |
| telepathy | mind-to-mind communication |
| clairvoyance | perceiving remote events, like sensing that a friend's house is on fire |
| precognition | perceiving future events |
Combine with other sets
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