1. Sensation and Perception

2. Sensation
“the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment”
Basically, it’s the raw information from your environment
Processed by sensory organs (eyes, ears, ect) and nerves in your body

3. “the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events”
Basically, it is our interpretation of the raw information
Influenced by experience, emotion, motivation and context

7. Bottom-up and Top-down processing
Bottom-up processing starts at the sensory receptors and works up to our higher levels of processing
Noticing the hue of someone’s face as being red, noticing the size of someone’s nose, the color of their eyes
Top-down processing constructs perceptions from sensory inputs
Identifying someone from their face, knowing a person was at the beach last weekend because they are sunburned

8. Selective Attention
Selecting important stimuli from the many thousands acting upon us
“important” is key here; texting seems important to your brain while driving, but it isn’t what’s REALLY important, is it?

9. Thresholds
Absolute Threshold: minimum stimulation required for detection 50% of the time
Difference Threshold: minimum difference a person can detect between two stimuli 50% of the time

10. PERCEPTUAL SET
LOOK CLOSELY AT THIS IMAGE OF A SEAL TRAINER, TRAINING A SEAL TO BALANCE A BALL ON ITS NOSE
GRIVAS – pg

11. PERCEPTUAL SET
LOOK CLOSELY AT THIS IMAGE OF A MAN HOLDING HIS LADY’S HAND AS HE ENTERS THE COSTUME PARTY
GRIVAS – pg

12. PERCEPTUAL SET
Perceptual set = the predisposition or ‘readiness’ to perceive something in accordance with what we expect it to be
GRIVAS – pg.125

13. PERCEPTUAL SET 5 factors influence perceptual set; Context Motivation
Emotional State
Past Experience
Cultural Factors
GRIVAS – pg

14. Refers to the setting or environment in which a perception is made
PERCEPTUAL SET
CONTEXT
Refers to the setting or environment in which a perception is made
GRIVAS – pg

15. PERCEPTUAL SET MOTIVATION
Refers to the processes within us which activate behaviour that is directed towards achieving a particular goal
GRIVAS – pg.129

16. PERCEPTUAL SET EMOTIONAL STATE
How we are feeling can also influence the way in which we perceive visual information
GRIVAS – pg.129

17. PERCEPTUAL SET PAST EXPERIENCE
Refers to our personal experiences throughout our lives which leads to many individual differences in perception
GRIVAS – pg

18. PERCEPTUAL SET
CULTURAL FACTORS Experience with or in a particular culture can influence the way we process and interpret visual information
GRIVAS – pg.130

19. DISTORTIONS OF VISUAL PERCEPTION BY ILLUSIONS
VISUAL ILLUSION
A misinterpretation (distortion or mistake) of real sensory information
A mismatch between our perception and what we understand as reality
GRIVAS – pg.133

20. DISTORTIONS OF VISUAL PERCEPTION BY ILLUSIONS
GRIVAS – pg.133

25. “Fraser’s Spiral”

27. “The Disappearing Circle”

28. “The Disappearing Circle”
When focusing on the black dot, why does the outer grey circle appear to fade away?

29. Sensory Adaptation Sensory Adaptation:
Senses tuned to change; adaptable
Responsive to increases and decreases of stimuli
E.g.:
Eyes adjust to darkness in a movie theatre
Skin adapts to coldness of ocean water

30. What would happen if we did not have “sensory adaptation?”
Can you think of other examples of how our senses adapt to changes in external stimuli?
What would happen if we did not have “sensory adaptation?”

31. “The Stroop Effect” (Part A.)

32. “The Stroop Effect” (Part B.)

33. “The Stroop Effect”
Why is it more difficult to name the colors in “Part B.?”
The “Stroop Effect” illustrates how difficult it is to ignore some kinds of stimuli
You were receiving two stimuli – the color and the word – which compete and slow you down when you try to name the color

34. THE MULLER-LYER ILLUSION
A visual illusion in which one of two lines of equal length, each of which has opposite shaped ends, is incorrectly perceived as being longer than the other
GRIVAS – pg

35. THE MULLER-LYER ILLUSION
GRIVAS – pg
BEHAVIOURAL PERSPECTIVE

36. THE AMES ROOM ILLUSION
A trapezium-shaped room that is longer and higher on one side than the other. The room’s unusual shape and being restricted to the use of monocular vision to view it provides the basis for the illusion. People in the room appear larger on the right than they do on the left
GRIVAS – pg

37. THE AMES ROOM ILLUSION
GRIVAS – pg