Psychology 100 Final

• author "martyr01"
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• fileName "Psych Final"
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• Perception
• Detection of something "out there" in the environment.
• "I see the cat"
• Not necessarily consciously aware
• (re: iconic memory; you could say, "my mind briefly encoded the info, but I didn't even know it"

• Awareness/feeling that includes inner states.
• "I'm in pain"
• Conscious awareness
• You would not say, " I was in terrible pain, but I didn't even know it."

• -Visual system (seeing)
• -Auditory system (hearing)
• -Gustatory system (taste)
• -Olfactory system (smell)
• -Tactile system (touch)
• -Kinesthetic system (body position/movement)

• -Psychological level: performance and especially errors
• -Biology of the perceptual systems

Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brains integration or sensory information.

Information guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.

Below ones absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

• The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing ones perception, memory, or response.
• -Images and ratings of people

• -Thirst and advertising
• -Self help tapes
• ...don't really work

• -Our eyes are always moving, nerve cells always firing.
• -After constant exposure to a stimuli a nerve cell fires less frequency.
• -Hearing, touch, smell, adapt easily.

• Objects don't disappear if you stare at them...
• -Contact lens projector study

(a) A projector mounted on a contact lens makes the projected image move with the eye. (b) initially the person sees the stabilized image, but soon she sees fragments fading and reappearing.

• The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect.
• -Cocktail party effect- attend to one voice among many
• -Change blindness construction worker study
• -Our brain needs to distinguish between figure and ground

• Failing to see visible objects when attention is directed elsewhere.
• -Gorilla in our midst: When attending to one task (counting basketball passes by one of the three-person teams) about half the viewers display inattentional blindness by failing to notice a clearly visible gorilla passing through.

• Change blindness
• While a man provides direction to a construction worker, two experimenters rudely pass between them carrying a door. DUring this interruption, the original construction worker switches places with a different person wearing different colored clothing. Most people, focused on their direction giving, do not notice the switch.

There is no smooth motion across the retina, yet people perceive motion.

After watching moving stimulus, stationary stimulus appear to move.

• -perception of motion not a direct function of motion on retina
• -implies that there are neural sensors dedicated to motion (that are highly activated by the spiral)

• visually induced perception of motion
• (e.g., watching a moving train though the window of a stationary train)

• We sometimes perceive objects moving when...
• -two objects appear in different places, w/no movement (phi)
• -objects doesn't move at all (motion after effect)

• We sometimes perceive motion when object fixed on retina...
• -turn head in parallel with object

• -ask participants to estimate the angle of a hill
• -get estimates before and after participants run for an hour

-hypothesis: if tired, hill will seem steeper (an automatic recalculation, with survival benefits)