Chapter 6 Perception
Transform meaningless sensations into meaningful perceptions
The Perception Paradox—misperceiving reality
Perception failure — our perceptual
experience of a stimulus differs from the actual characteristics of that stimulus
Three approaches to perception Computational approach — focuses on how computations by the nervous
system translate raw sensory stimulation into an experience of reality
Constructivist approach — the perceptual system uses fragments of sensory
information to construct an image of reality Ecological approach — humans and other species are so well adapted to
their natural environment that many aspects of the world are perceived without requiring higher-level analysis and inferences
Selective Attention—the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus
Cocktail party effect—the ability to attend selectively to only one voice among many
The experiments (视而不见) U. Neisser(1979) and … Can unnoticed stimuli affect us? “We stood by the bank” (river or money)
Perceptual Illusions
Optical ~: misjudge length, position, motion, curvature, or direction
A classic illusion created by Franz Müller-Lyer, 1889
The Poggenddorff illusion
The Ebbinghaus illusion
Zollner illusion
The face looks familiar
Perceptual Organization
Gestalt — an organized whole — the whole may exceed the
sum of its partsForm perception
Figure and Ground — the organization of the visual field into objects (the figure) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground)
A face or an Eskimo
An old man or two young lovers
A young lady or a man playing saxophone
Salvador Dali’s Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940)
Grouping — the perceptual tendency
to organize stimuli into coherent groups
Proximity
Similarity
Continuity
Closure
Depth Perception—learned or innate Visual Cliff
Binocular Cues
Retinal disparity Convergence
Monocular Cues: relative size —if separate objects are expected to be of the
same size, the larger ones are seen as closer
Linear perspective — parallel lines appear to converge with distance
Texture gradient — a texture is coarser for near areas and finer for more distant ones
Interposition — the shapes of near objects overlap or mask of more distant ones
Height in plane — near objects are low in the visual field; more distant ones are higher up
Light and shadow—patterns of light and dark suggest shadows that can create an impression of three-dimensional forms
Motion Perception—phi phenomenon
Perceptual Constancy
ShapeSizeLightnessColor
Color depends on context
Perceptual Adaptation
Perceptual Set
a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another
Recognizing faces
Our schemas for faces prime us to see facial patterns
Average face?
平均脸:more attractive?
Recognizing the Perceptual World
Bottom-up processingTop-down processingNetwork processing
Perception and Human Factor