Podcast
Questions and Answers
What is the primary role of the sensory and perceptual systems?
What is the primary role of the sensory and perceptual systems?
Which part of the eye is responsible for providing the highest visual acuity?
Which part of the eye is responsible for providing the highest visual acuity?
How does the brain identify color based on cone activity?
How does the brain identify color based on cone activity?
Which statement about sensation is correct?
Which statement about sensation is correct?
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Which of the following is primarily responsible for processing different senses in the brain?
Which of the following is primarily responsible for processing different senses in the brain?
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What percentage of the time do people look at others when they are talking?
What percentage of the time do people look at others when they are talking?
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What is the impact of inversion on face recognition according to the inversion effect?
What is the impact of inversion on face recognition according to the inversion effect?
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In the Bruce & Young (1986) model, what is the first step of face recognition?
In the Bruce & Young (1986) model, what is the first step of face recognition?
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What phenomenon explains the difficulty in detecting the inversion of facial features when the entire face is inverted?
What phenomenon explains the difficulty in detecting the inversion of facial features when the entire face is inverted?
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What is prosopagnosia commonly referred to as?
What is prosopagnosia commonly referred to as?
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Which of the following statements is true regarding the importance of configural information in face recognition?
Which of the following statements is true regarding the importance of configural information in face recognition?
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What do we tend to follow according to eye direction as a communicative signal?
What do we tend to follow according to eye direction as a communicative signal?
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What does the Bruce & Young (1986) model suggest about the cognitive process of face recognition?
What does the Bruce & Young (1986) model suggest about the cognitive process of face recognition?
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What is the term for the perception of objects as having consistent color despite changes in lighting?
What is the term for the perception of objects as having consistent color despite changes in lighting?
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What does the term 'Gestalt' refer to in psychology?
What does the term 'Gestalt' refer to in psychology?
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Which of the following is NOT a cue for depth perception?
Which of the following is NOT a cue for depth perception?
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What do infants prefer according to Valenza et al. (1996) when shown face-like patterns?
What do infants prefer according to Valenza et al. (1996) when shown face-like patterns?
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What is the primary focus of the Bruce & Young (1986) model of face recognition?
What is the primary focus of the Bruce & Young (1986) model of face recognition?
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Which concept explains why we perceive depth from a 2D retinal image?
Which concept explains why we perceive depth from a 2D retinal image?
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What behavioural preference regarding faces is evident from birth?
What behavioural preference regarding faces is evident from birth?
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What is the main impact of the inversion effect on face recognition?
What is the main impact of the inversion effect on face recognition?
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What role does eye contact play in communication?
What role does eye contact play in communication?
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What condition describes a severe impairment in face recognition?
What condition describes a severe impairment in face recognition?
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Which of the following is an example of a cue for depth perception?
Which of the following is an example of a cue for depth perception?
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According to research, what changes in preference for facial expressions occur by 12 weeks of age?
According to research, what changes in preference for facial expressions occur by 12 weeks of age?
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What is the significance of facial expressions in communication?
What is the significance of facial expressions in communication?
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What is one feature of the Thatcher effect?
What is one feature of the Thatcher effect?
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Study Notes
Sensation and Perception
- Stimulus: Physical energy that triggers a response in a sense organ.
- Sensation: The reception of physical energy by the sense organ.
- Perception: The brain's interpretation, analysis, and integration of stimuli, occurring in sensory and visual areas of the brain.
- Stimulus Energy to Perception: Light, sound, smells etc, stimulate sensory receptors in eyes, ears, nose etc. This triggers neural impulses that are processed in different brain areas.
Brain and Perception
- Brain Specialization: Different brain areas are specialized for processing different senses.
- Visual Cortex Sub-regions: Even within a single area like the visual cortex, specialized sub-areas perform specific tasks.
Critical Role of Sensation and Perception
- Information Overload: The world provides an excess of information.
- Selective Processing: Our perceptual systems prioritize relevant and significant information to be processed.
- Examples: Visual perception illustrates how only a specific range of light wavelengths are processed.
- Sensory Processing Stages: Sensation—perception—cognition form a sequence, each stage involving interpretation, elaboration, and assumptions to generate perception from raw information.
Visual Perception
- Eye Structure: The retina is a thin layer of photoreceptor cells. The fovea contains cones—important for color vision in sufficient light—and rods—for black and white vision in dim light.
- Color Perception: The brain compares activity across the three cone types to determine color, not relying on a single cone's activity.
- Processing: The brain actively processes information, not just passively receiving it.
- Color Constancy: Our perception of objects' colors remains relatively consistent even under different lighting conditions.
Gestalt Psychology
- Holistic Perception: Gestalt psychologists emphasize the tendency to integrate information into meaningful wholes.
- Perception is More than the Sum of Parts: Perception involves more than simply combining individual sensory inputs.
Perceiving Depth
- Depth Perception: Our ability to perceive the world in 3D and determine object distances despite receiving a 2D image on the retina.
- Cognitive Processing: Depth perception requires internal cognitive processes to interpret the 2D retinal image.
- Cues for Depth Perception: Relative size, light and shadow, interposition (overlap), and texture are examples of cues used to derive depth perception.
- Size Constancy: Our understanding of constant size for objects despite changes in distance or apparent size, aiding depth perception.
Face Perception
- Importance of Faces: Faces play a crucial role in communication, revealing emotions, indicating identity, and facilitating eye contact.
- Early Face Preference: Infants show a preference for face-like stimuli early in development. Studies, notably by Valenza et al (1996) and Mondloch et al (1999), demonstrate this.
- Facial Expressions: Newborns can discriminate and imitate facial expressions, as evidenced by Field et al (1982).
- Eye Contact & Direction: Eye contact is important in face-to-face interactions; eye direction is a communicative cue.
- Face Expertise & Inversion Effect: Our experience with faces creates expertise in face recognition, and the inversion effect (difficulty recognizing inverted faces) underscores the crucial role of facial configurations. The study by Yin (1996) illustrated this.
- The Thatcher Effect (Thompson, 1980): Difficulty detecting distortions (like eyes or mouth inverted) in inverted faces, demonstrating that configural processing is important in face recognition.
- Bruce & Young (1986) Model of Face Recognition: This model proposes stages of face recognition, from structural encoding to personal identity and name generation.
- Prosopagnosia (Face Blindness): A condition characterized by severe difficulties in face recognition, often resulting from brain damage.
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Description
Explore the fundamentals of sensation and perception, including the processes of stimulus reception and brain interpretation. Learn about the critical role of sensory organs and specialized brain areas in processing physical energy and the challenges of information overload.
