Ap Psychology Unit 4: Perception

Gestalt Psychology

A psychological approach that emphasizes that we often perceive the whole rather than the sum of the parts.

Necker Cube

two dimensional figure of a cube that can be seen from different perspectives., An outline that is perceptually bi-stable. Unlike the situation with most stimuli, two interpretations continually battle for perceptual dominance.

Muller-lyer Illusion

A famous visual illusion involving the misperception of the identical length of two lines, one with arrows pointed inward, one with arrows pointed outward.
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Hermann grid

The white kine black squares flashing dots illusion

Kanizsa Illusion

brain is biased to percieve objects when there's no object really there

Figure Ground

the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground).

Law of pragnanz

states that our brain organizes patterns in the simplest way possible; principle of Gestalt psychology

Proximity

A relationship to personal space

Similarity

A law of organization that says that objects that look similar tend to be grouped together when we perceive them.

Continuity

A tendency for political preferences to remain generally stable over time.

Connectedness

Because they are uniform and linked, we perceive each set of two dots and the line between them as one unit

Closure

An ending or completion, or something that gives a sense of finality.

Visual cliff experiment

Gibson and Walk. Infants as young as 6 months usually hesitate to crawl past the apparent edge of a visual cliff, which suggests that they are able to perceive depth.

Binocular cues

Depth cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence, that depend on the use of two eyes

Monocular cues

Depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone

Stroboscopic

The illusion of movement is produced by showing the rapid progression of images or objects that are not moving at all

Phi Phenomenon

An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession

Shape Constancy

the tendency to interpret the shape of an object as being constant, even when its shape changes on the retina

Size constancy

Perception of an object as the same size regardless of the distance from which it is viewed

Lightness (brightness) Constancy

Refers to the fact that, despite changes in the amount of light falling on an object (illumination), the apparent lightness of the object remains unchanged.

perceptual adaptation

In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field

context effect

The tendency to recover info more easily when the retrieval occurs in the same setting as the original learning of the same info

parapsychology

the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis

telepathy

Communication from one mind to another without speech, writing, or other sensory means

Clairvoyance

apparent power to perceive things that are not present to the senses

Precognition

Perceiving future events

psychokinesis

the power to move something by thinking about it without the application of physical force