10/2/2017

AP Psychology

3.5 – Perception

Perception
• Selection
• Selecting where to direct our
attention is the first step in
perception

• Selective attention and

feature detectors help explain
why we pay attention to some
stimuli in our environment and
not to others

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Perception
• Selective Attention
• The cognitive process of
selectively concentrating on
one or more aspects of the
environment while filtering
out or ignoring other
information
• Example: Not hearing your teacher
telling you directions for an
assignment, but hearing your phone
buzz in your bag

• Cocktail Party Effect – Being

able to focus your attention
on a single speaker amongst
background noise

Perception
• Feature Detectors
• Specialized neurons in the
brain that only respond to
certain sensory information

• Example: An area just behind

your right ear allows you to
recognize faces
• Damage to this area can result in
Prosopagnosia, a disorder that
causes an inability to detect
differences in faces

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Perception
• Gestalt Principles of Organization
• Gestalt psychologists believe that we actively process our
sensations according to consistent perceptual rules

• These rules create whole perceptions, or gestalts, that are

meaningful, symmetrical, and as simple as conditions will
allow

Perception
• Figure-Ground Relationship
• The human tendency to
distinguish between figure and
ground is the most fundamental
Gestalt principle or
organization

• The figure is the main element

of a scene that clearly stands
out

• In contrast, the ground is the

less distinct background of a
scene

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Perception
• Perceptual Grouping
• Similarity
• States that there is tendency to
perceive objects of a similar
size, shape, or color as a unit or
figure

• Proximity
• States that there is a tendency to
perceive objects that are
physically close to one another as
a single unit

• Closure
• States that there is a tendency to
fill in the gaps of in an
incomplete image

Perception
• Depth Perception
• The ability to perceive three-
dimensional space and to
accurately judge distance

• Although it is possible to use

sound and even smell to judge
distances, we rely heavily on
vision to perceive both
distance and three-dimensional
space

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Perception
• Visual Cliff Experiment
• Experiment designed to test
depth perception in infants
• Suggests that crawling age
infants and some newborn
animals can perceive the
“drop”
• Supports the conclusion that
depth perception in humans is
an innate capacity that
emerges during infancy

Perception
• Monocular Depth Cues
• Require the use of only one
eye to process distance or
depth cues

• Linear Perspective
• Parallel lines converge toward a
vanishing point as they recede
into the distance

• Aerial Perspective/Texture
Gradient
• Distant objects often appear hazy
and blurred compared to close
objects

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Perception
• Monocular Depth Cues
• Require the use of only one
eye to process distance or
depth cues

• Relative Size
• If two or more objects are assumed
to be similar in size, the object
that appears larger is perceived
as being closer

• Motion Parallax
• As you move, you use the speed of
passing objects to estimate the
distance of the objects

Perception
• Monocular Depth Cues
• Require the use of only one
eye to process distance or
depth cues

• Interposition
• Closer objects are perceived to
block distant objects

• Light & Shadow

• Closer objects appear to be
brighter
• Closer objects will have larger
shadows

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Perception
• Binocular Depth Cues
• Require the use of both eyes
to process the distance or
depth cues

• Convergence
• The closer the object, the more
the eyes converge, or turn inward

• Retinal Disparity
• The separation of the eyes causes
different images to fall on each
retina
• When two retinal images are very
different, we interpret them to be
very close. When they are similar,
we interpret them to be far away.