sensation & perception exam 2

inverse projection problem

when the object is on our retina and we have to determine what it is

viewpoint invariance

able to recognize an object no matter what point of view you see it from

grouping

visual events that are put together into units or objects

segregation

separate one area or object from another

chunking

chunking similar objects together automatically

structuralism

breaking an object down into its most basic parts

apparent motion

something appears to be moving but it actually is not

illusory contours

contours (or lines) created are not really there

good continuation

when points are connected, they result in a straight, smooth curving line & they're seen as together

pragnanz

every stimulus pattern is seen in the simplest way possible

similarity

similar figures or objects seem to be grouped together

proximity

objects near each other seem to be grouped together

common fate

objects moving in the same direction seem to be grouped together

common region

elements in the same space appear to be grouped together

uniform connectedness

connected region of the same visual property, whether it be light, color, texture, or motion, those appear to be grouped together as a single unit

scene

a view of the real-world environment that contains background elements & multiple objects that are organized in a meaningful way relative to each other and to the background

gist of a scene

when we get the general idea of what is occurring without seeing the entire scene

global image features

degree of naturalness, degrees of openness, color, degree of roughness, degree of expansion

semantics

meaning of a scene, what's occurring

theory of unconscious inference

our perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions we make about the enviornment

attention

when we pay specific attention to an object while ignoring others

visual scanning

mechanism for selecting things in our environment

fixation

when you're scanning a scene looking for a certain object and you get stuck on a particular part of the photo

saccadic eye movement

when your eyes are darting around

overt attention

when you're looking directly at something

covert attention

not looking directly at something, but you're still attending to it

attentional capture

doing one thing, but then our attention is taken to something else that is more salient

scene schemas

observer's knowledge about what is supposed to be in a certain scene

spatial attention

when your attention is fixated on a specific location

precueing

way to draw attention to a specific location

binding

when features (color, form, motion, and location) come together to create our perception of an object

visual search

when we look for an object among many other objects

feature search

find one feature (vertical)

conjunction search

horizontal and vertical

inattentional blindness

we don't see something in front of us because we aren't attending to it

change blindness

when something changes from one picture to another

task irrelevant stimuli

don't provide relevant information for the task at hand

perceptual capacity

each person has a specific capacity for carrying out perceptual tasks

perceptual load

amount of perceptual capacity needed to perform a task