| Term | Definition |
|---|
| perception | using knowledge of the world to interpret sensations and give them meaning |
| psychophysics | research on the relationship between physical characteristics of stimuli and our psychological (mental) experience of them |
| absolute threshold | the minimum intensity of stimulus needed for us to report noticing it 50% of the time |
| subliminal stimuli | stimuli that are too weak or brief to be perceived |
| supraliminal stimuli | stimuli that are strong enough to be consistently perceived |
| sensitivity | refers to our ability to pick out a particular stimulus or signal; it's inflenced by intensity of the signal, capacity of sensory system, and amount of noise interfering with stimulus |
| response criterion | internal rule a person uses to decide whether or not to report a stimulus |
| signal-detection theory | a model of how a person's sensitivity and response criterion combine to determine a person's report that a "near-threshold" stimulus has occured or not (uses hits, misses, false alarms, correct rejections) |
| just-noticable difference | also called difference threshold; the smallest detectable difference in stimulus energy |
| Weber's Law | states that the JND is a constant fraction of the intensity of the stimulus (K times I) |
| Weber's Constant | a fraction of an amount of stimulus energy that causes JND, this value is smaller as the sensitivity of the sense increases |
| perceptual organization | the mental task of determining what edges and other stimuli go together to form an object |
| figure-ground organization | when our perceptual system automatically emphasizes certain features, objects, or sounds and all other stimuli become the background to these |
| gestalt | means whole figure and has become a school of thought about how we organize stimuli into a world of shapes and objects |
| proximity | gestalt law saying that close objects or events are likely to be perceived as belonging together |
| similarity | gestalt law; similar elemens are likely to perceived as part of a group or whole |
| continuity | gestalt law; sensations that appear to create a continuous form are perceived as belonging together (a whole) |
| closure | gestalt law; we tend to fill in missing contours to form a complete object; it may even cause you to see subjective contours |
| common fate | gestalt law; objects moving in the same direction at the same speed are perceived together |
| synchrony | gestalt law; stimuli that occur at the same time are likely to be perceived as belonging together |
| common region | gestalt law; elements located within some boundary tend to be grouped together |
| connectedness | gestalt law; elements that are connected by other elements tend to grouped together |
| likelihood principle | explains organizational principles as coming from the way stimuli are likely to be organized in the natural world |
| simplicity principle | explains organizational principles as being the simplest interpretation of stimulus elements (to reduce the amount of info processing the brain has to do) |
| visual dominance | a tendency for information coming from the visual system to be believed over information coming from other sensory systems |
| depth perception | the ability to perceive distance |
| interposition | depth cue whereby closer objects block one's view of things farther away. |
| relative size | depth cue whereby larger objects are perceived as closer than smaller ones (if they are perceived to be about the same size) |
| texture gradient | depth cue whereby a gradual change in the level of detail reveals less detailed objects as being farther away |
| linear perspective | depth cue whereby objects closer to the point of convergence are seen as farther away |
| motion parallax | a depth cue whereby a difference in the apparent rate of movement of different objects reveals their distance (faster moving objects are closer than slow moving ones) |
| convergence | depth cue whereby information about the rotation of the eyes helps the brain calculate how close something is |
| binocular disparty | depth cue based on the difference between the two images perceived by your two eyes |
| looming | a motion cue involving rapid expansion of the size of an image so that it fills space on the retina |
| stroboscopic motion | illusion of movement in which lights or images presented in rapid succession seem to move |
| perceptual constancy | perception of objecs as constant in shape, size, and color (etc.) despite changes in their retinal image |
| size constancy | makes objects seem the same size despite the change in the size of their retinal image |
| shape constancy | despite moving objects around in space, you perceive them as the same basic shape even though their retinal image may change dramatically |
| brightness constancy | regardless of actual reflected light, objects' perceived brightness remains constant |
| top-down processing | aspect of recognition that is guided by expectations, schemas, educated guesses, or motivation then tries to confirm if something is what you perceived it to be |
| bottom-up processing | aspect of recognition that depends on information gathered by the senses which is combined to "build" a concept of something recognized |
| schemas | mental representations of what we know and have come to expect about the world (create perceptual sets) |
| attention | the proces of directing and focusing psychological resources to enhance perception, performance, and mental experience |
| inattentional blindness | causes you to ignore elements in the environment when your attention is focused elsewhere |
Combine with other sets
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