Gestalt (Bless You) Psychophysics (Not Physics for Psychos) The Eyes Have It Your Brain On Light You’re So Deep

This explains why these words in white letters stand out from the blue

What is the figure-ground principle?

This principle explains how we organize elements into basic shapes. That was easy!

What is simplicity?

Don’t stand so close to me, we might be grouped together based upon this principle

What is proximity?

I couldn’t seem to fill in what was missing, but now it’s done … I’m glad I found this:

What is closure?

“When you see a fork in the road, take it.” Oh well, we’ll probably stay on the same path, despite interruptions, thanks to this principle

What is continuity?

“Can you hear me now?” If so, I must have passed this level of stimulus intensity

What is the absolute threshold?

There’s only one “p” in “pool,” but I’d watch out for those warm spots by those kids. If you sensed that the temperature has changed you’ve reached this

What is a just noticeable difference?

Can you read the words after the colon: Mr. Klein is great! If you can’t detect it correctly 50% of the time, it counts as this

What is a subliminal stimulus?

This states that the magnitude of a sensory experience is proportional to the number of JNDs that the stimulus causing the experience is above absolute threshold. There should be a “law” against such long definitions.

What is Fechner’s law?

With so much “noise” in here, I’m going to have a lot of “false alarms” according to this theory

What is signal detection theory?

Who needs night vision goggles? I’ll just look slightly above or below the object in order to stimulate these cells

What are rods?

Oh no, my lens is focusing the image too short to reach the retina! I have this condition

What is nearsightedness?

I really need to read the fine details and analyze the colors. I’m going to make sure I use this section of the retina that exclusively contains cones

What is the fovea?

Love is blind, and so are we all at the blind spot. It’s located at this spot where the optic nerve connects to the retina

What is the optic disc?

This is the point at which the optic nerves from the inside half of each eye cross over and then project to the opposite half of the brain (don’t jump off a cliff if you can’t pronounce it)

What is the optic chiasm?

According to this theory, combining three primary colors can yield a million different colorful perceptions. A likely story.

What is trichromatic theory?

Stop being such a baby. Don’t do the opposite of what the cells next to you in the retina are doing. Oh well, I guess it’s hard to avoid this pattern of neural activity

What is lateral antagonism?

About 90% of the axons from the retinas synapse here … must be some nice nucleus … see if you can make a “L”ucky “G”uess

What is the lateral geniculate nucleus?

These two channels of the main visual pathway engage in parallel processing … they are “mag”nificent in their ability to “par”se through complex images we all encounter

What are the magnocellular and parvocellular channels?

Trying to see that bug on the tip of your nose is making you cross-eyed. Your eyes are using too much of this binocular depth cue

What is convergence?

Whoa! We must be going really fast, those lampposts are a blur thanks to this monocular depth cue

What is motion parallax?

I don’t care if your uncle looks taller than mine, it’s just because my uncle is farther away. Besides that’s not where this pictorial depth cue gets its name

What is relative size?

I don’t want to start an argument, but my left eye is seeing a different image than my right. Good thing my brain is using this information to calculate depth

What is retinal disparity?

Wow! Look at the detail in this flower close to me. I wish I could see as much detail in that pretty yellow one in the distance. It must be the work of this pictorial cue

What is texture gradient?

Our experience with room corners can help explain this illusion found on many a cereal box

What is the Müller-Lyer illusion?