Perception (Vision)

Question 1

What is the pathway for sensation/perception?

Answer 1

Stimulus energy -> sensory receptors -> neural impulses -> brain

Question 2

What are exteroceptive sensation?

Answer 2

Sensations from external stimuli - rely on our sensory organs to pick up the stimuli

Question 3

What are the sensations within the body?

Answer 3

Proprioception, nociception, equilibrioception

Question 4

What is propriocetion?

Answer 4

Sense of body/limb in space

Question 5

What is nociception?

Answer 5

Sense of pain due to body damage

Question 6

What is equilibrioception?

Answer 6

Sense of balance

Question 7

What is synaesthesia?

Answer 7

Medical conditions where activating one sense activates another
Genetic component and more common in women
E.g., smell sounds, hear colors

Question 8

What are examples of synaesthesia?

Answer 8

Grapheme-color synesthesia: color with letter/numbers
Chromesthesia: sound evokes colors

Question 9

What is the McGurk Effect?

Answer 9

What you hear is also what you see - brain will try to combine it if they are disconnected
Shows speech isn’t just “heard”

Question 10

What does early visual processing entail?

Answer 10

Sensation, supported by eyes and optic nerve

Question 11

What does late visual processing entail?

Answer 11

Perception, supported by visual vortex/occipital lobe

Question 12

What is the visual pathway?

Answer 12

Light waves into eye -> project on retina -> retina makes inverted image -> retina photoreceptors convert light to electrical activity

Question 13

What are rods and where are they concentrated?

Answer 13

Low light level for night vision (less detailed), in periphery

Question 14

What are cones and where are they concetrated?

Answer 14

High light levels for detailed color vision, in fovea

Question 15

What does our brain do with the info from our eyes?

Answer 15

It compresses it (information compression) - we don’t see everything despite seemingly experience everything

Question 16

What is the fovea?

Answer 16

Central part of visual field

Question 17

What is perceptory filling in?

Answer 17

Periphery vision is “less blurry” because it is filled with info from central vision

Question 18

Where do we have a blindspot?

Answer 18

Where the optic nerve is (no photoreceptors)

Question 19

Where are ganglion cells and photoreceptors located?

Answer 19

Ganglion cells are in the front - photoreceptors in the back

Question 20

What cells go to the brain from the eye?

Answer 20

Ganglion retina cells

Question 21

What is the thalamus?

Answer 21

The way-station - optic nerve of each eye transmits info from both hemisphere
Contralateral representation in the brain

Question 22

What is the primary visual cortex?

Answer 22

Specialized regions that process specific visual attributes/features (edges, angles, color, light)

Question 23

What are the visual association areas?

Answer 23

Interpret visual signals, assign meaning

Question 24

What are the two pathways of the visual association areas and their roles?

Answer 24

Ventral - what
Dorsal - where (think dolphin)

Question 25

What is bottom-up processing?

Answer 25

Influence of external environment on perception Eyes -> sensory organs

Question 26

What is top-down processing?

Answer 26

Influence of knowledge on perception Brain -> sensory organs

Question 27

What is the Constructivist Theory of Perception?

Answer 27

Top-down processing influences bottom-up processes We use our knowledge to interpret sensory information

Question 28

What is the pathway for touch senses?

Answer 28

Mechanoreceptors -> spine -> somatosensory cortex

Question 29

What is the cortical homunculus?

Answer 29

It illustrates the sensitivity of different parts of body based on concentration of sensory receptors

Question 30

What is the pathway for smell senses?

Answer 30

Chemicals -> olfactory epithelium -> olfactory bulb in brain

Question 31

Why can smell trigger a memory more than sight?

Answer 31

There are direct connections between memory and emotion brain regions

Question 32

What is the pathway for taste senses?

Answer 32

Taste buds -> thalamus -> primary gustatory cortex

Question 33

What influences taste?

Answer 33

Vision

Question 34

What are bistable figures?

Answer 34

Experience spontaneous subjective change in perception

Question 35

What is Gestalt Psychology?

Answer 35

Top-down organizational principles to deal with ambiguous figures (like bistable figures) Visual grouping principles are not conscious

Question 36

What are Gestalt's visual grouping principles?

Answer 36

Proximity, closed forms, good contour/continuation, similarity, common fate, experience

Question 37

What is the direct model of visual perception?

Answer 37

Passive bottom-up approach - sensory info is enough for perception

Question 38

What is the ecological approach under direct model to understanding perception?

Answer 38

Ambient optical array (AOA) - all visual info given == is enough to guide perception and action

Question 39

What are affordances?

Answer 39

Cues indicate potential function of an object E.g., levers

Question 40

What happens when there is damage to the primary visual cortex?

Answer 40

BLINDSIGHT - can't consciously perceive anything

Question 41

What does blindsight tell us about unconscious processing?

Answer 41

We are able to implicitly respond to questions about object present in damaged visual field - we can perceive without consciousness and distinction between conscious/unconscious peception

Question 42

What does damage to the dorsal pathway cause?

Answer 42

AKINETOPSIA - cannot perceive motion (motion blindness), sees it in stop motion

Question 43

What does damage to the ventral pathway cause?

Answer 43

VISUAL AGNOSIA - difficulty recognizing everyday objects, can be selective to visual categories

Question 44

What is auditory agnosia?

Answer 44

difficulty identifying objects through sound

Question 45

What is olfactory agnosia?

Answer 45

Difficulty recognizing smells

Question 46

What does damage to the fusiform face area (FFA) cause?

Answer 46

PROSOPAGNOSIA - selective deficit recognizing faces but can recognize other things Require context (clothes, hair) to recognize people

Question 47

Why are faces linked to the FFA?

Answer 47

We see faces often (experts) and FFA is theorized to be used for high discrimination

Question 48

What are the two types of visual object agnosia?

Answer 48

Apperceptive agnosia and associative agnosia

Question 49

What is apperceptive agnosia?

Answer 49

Problem perceiving objects - things look distorted Can perceive individual elements but not the whole thing CANNOT copy, CAN draw from memory

Question 50

What is associative agnosia?

Answer 50

Problems assigning meaning to objects Difficulty accessing info from memory CAN copy, CANNOT draw from memory

Question 51

How are apperceptive and associative agnosia related?

Answer 51

They are opposites: Apperceptive: CANNOT copy, CAN draw from memory Associative: CAN copy, CANNOT draw from memory

Question 52

What is the template matching theory?

Answer 52

We have a template in our mind that is being compared to what we see

Question 53

What is the issue with template matching theory?

Answer 53

It doesn't account for variability and ability to recognize and categorize new objects

Question 54

What is the prototype theory?

Answer 54

We have an average representation of an object in our mind - allows for flexibility