Cog Psych Midterm 2

Front 1

bottom-up process

Back 1

cognitive (usually perceptual) process guided by environmental input

Front 2

categorical perception

Back 2

classification of sounds that vary on an acoustic dimension continuously into discrete categories

Front 3

configural superiority effect (CSE)

Back 3

a perceptual phenomenon in which perception of an "odd stimulus out" is faster in a composite stimulus display than in a base stimulus display with fewer stimuli

Front 4

constructivist approach to perception

Back 4

an understanding of perception as a process requiring the active construction of subjective mental representations not only from perceptual information but also from long-term memory

Front 5

context effects

Back 5

effect on a cognitive process (ex: perception) of the information surrounding the target object or event. Sometimes call expectation effect because the context is thought to set up certain expectations in the mind of the cognitive processor

Front 6

direct perception

Back 6

theory of perceptions, proposed by James J. Gibson holding that information in the world is "picked up on" by the cognitive processor without much construction of internal representations or inferences. The emphasis is on direct acquisition of information

Front 7

distal stimulus

Back 7

an object, event, or pattern as it exists in the world

Front 8

emergence

Back 8

a perceptual phenomenon in which qualitative differences appear as parts of a stimulus are added, such that whole stimuli take on properties that are novel and unpredictable

Front 9

feature

Back 9

a component, or part, of an object, event, or representation

Front 10

figure-ground organization

Back 10

a perceptual segregation of a stimulus into one or more objects of a focal interest and background

Front 11

geon

Back 11

simple geometric component hypothesized to be used in the recognition of objects

Front 12

Gestalt principles of perceptual organization

Back 12

law that explain the regularities in the way people come to the perceptual interpretations of stimuli. The emphasis is on the apprehension of whole structures rather on than the detection and assembly of parts of structures

Front 13

pattern recognition

Back 13

classification of a stimulus into a category

Front 14

percept

Back 14

outcome of a perceptual process; the meaningful interpretation of incoming information

Front 15

perception

Back 15

the interpretation of sensory information to yield a meaningful description or understanding

Front 16

perceptual learning

Back 16

the changes in perception that occur as a function of practice or experience with the stimuli

Front 17

phenome

Back 17

the smallest unit of sound that makes a meaningful difference between utterances in a given language

Front 18

prototype

Back 18

an abstract representation of an idealized member of a class of objects or events

Front 19

proximal stimulus

Back 19

reception of information and its registration by a sense organ - for example, retinal images in the case of vision

Front 20

retina

Back 20

a layer of visual receptor cells at the rear of the eyeball

Front 21

retinal image

Back 21

a proximal stimulus for vision consisting of the projection of light waves reflected from stimuli and projected to a surface at the back of the eye

Front 22

size constancy

Back 22

the phenomenon that one's perception of an object remains constant even as the retinal image of the object changes size (ex: because the object has moved closer or farther away from the perceiver)

Front 23

subjective contours

Back 23

illusory outline created by certain visual cues that lead to erroneous form perception. The existence of this phenomenon suggests that a perception is an active constructive process

Front 24

template

Back 24

a stored pattern or model to which incoming information is matched in order to be recognized and classified

Front 25

top-down procesc

Back 25

cognitive process directed by expectations (derived from context, past learning, or both) to form a larger percept, concept, or interpretation. Also called conceptually driven or theory-driven process

Front 26

visual agnosia

Back 26

an impairment in the ability to interpret (but not to see) visual information

Front 27

visual search task

Back 27

a task in which subjects are asked to detect the presence of a particular target against an array of similar stimuli

Front 28

word superiority effect

Back 28

the phenomenon that single letters are more quickly identified in the context of words than they are when presented alone or in the context of random letters

Front 29

attention hypothesis of automatization

Back 29

the proposal that attention is needed during the learning phase of a new task

Front 30

attentional capture

Back 30

a phenomenon in which certain stimuli seem to "pop out" and require a person to shift cognitive resources automatically to them

Front 31

attenuation theory

Back 31

a model of attention in which unattended perceptual events are transmitted in weakened form but not blocked completely before being processes for meaning

Front 32

automatic processing

Back 32

the carrying out of a cognitive task with minimal resources. Typically, automatic processing occurs without intention, interferes minimally with other cognitive tasks, and may not involve conscious awareness

Front 33

controlled processing

Back 33

the carrying out of a cognitive task with a deliberate allocation of cognitive resources. Typically, controlled processing occurs on difficult and/or unfamiliar tasks requiring attention and is under conscious control

Front 34

dichotic listening task

Back 34

a task in which a person hears two or more different, specially recorded messages over earphones and is asked to attend to one of them

Front 35

divided attention

Back 35

the ways in which a cognitive processor allocated cognitive resources to two or more tasks that are carried out simultaneously

Front 36

dual-task performance

Back 36

an experimental paradigm involving presentation of two tasks for a person to work on simultaneously

Front 37

event-related potential (ERP)

Back 37

an electrical recording technique used to measure the response of the brain the various stimulus events

Front 38

feature integration theory

Back 38

proposal that perception of familiar stimuli occurs in two stages. The first, automatic stage involved the perception of object features. The second, attentional stage involves the integration and unification of those features

Front 39

filter theory

Back 39

theory of attention proposing that information that exceeds the capacity of a processor to process at any given time is blocked from further processing

Front 40

inattentional blindness

Back 40

phenomenon of not perceiving a stimulus that might be literally right in front of you, unless you are paying attention to it

Front 41

priming

Back 41

phenomenon in which exposure to one stimulus facilitates response to another stimulus

Front 42

schema theory

Back 42

theory of attention that claims unattended information is never perceived

Front 43

selective attention

Back 43

focusing of cognitive resources on one or a small number of tasks to the exclusion of others

Front 44

Stroop task

Back 44

a task invented by J.R. Stroop in which a subject sees a list of words (color terms) printed in an ink color that differs from the word names. The subject is asked to name to ink colors of the words on the list and demonstrates great difficulty in doing so, relative to a condition in which non-color words form the stimuli

Front 45

one important perceptual task is the ________________ of the figure from the background

Back 45

segregation

Front 46

perception clearly involves some _______________ and some ________________ of the sensations we receive

Back 46

integration

interpretation

Front 47

law of Pragnanz

Back 47

states that all of the possible interpretations a perceiver could make of a stimulus, he or she will select the one that yields the simplest, most stable form

Front 48

various bottom-up models of perception include (3):

Back 48

1. template matching

2. prototype matching

3. featural analysis

Front 49

template matching

Back 49

holds that patterns are recognized when perceivers match them to stored mental representations

Front 50

prototype matching

Back 50

posits that the stored mental representations are not exact copies of stimuli but rather idealizations

Front 51

featural analysis

Back 51

holds that we first recognize features or components of patterns and objects and then put information about those components together to form an integrated interpretation

Front 52

top-down models of perception incorporate perceivers' _______________ into the model of how we interpret sensory information

Back 52

expectations

Front 53

_________________ model of letter perception illustrates just how complex the task of recognizing single letters can be

Back 53

connectionist

Front 54

in both constructivist and direct-perception approaches to perception, perception is assumed to be the result of _______________, either mental or physical

Back 54

activity

Front 55

disruptions of perceptions

Back 55

(as in visual agnosias, including prosopagnosia) involve not understanding or recognizing what is seen

Front 56

apperceptive agnosias

Back 56

involve intact recognition of contours but an inability to recognize what the object is

Front 57

associative agnosics

Back 57

can recognize the identity of objects but focus intently on small details

Front 58

prosopagnosia

Back 58

inability to recognize faces, perhaps or relatives or of famous people, or even one's own reflection or photograph

Front 59

attention is a ___________ system

Back 59

flexible

Front 60

selective attention

Back 60

the idea that there are limits on the number of things we can play attention to at once

Front 61

a metaphor for attention is a __________________

Back 61

spotlight

Front 62

automatic tasks

Back 62

tasks that require little mental capacity to perform

Front 63

some criteria proposed to call a task or process automatic include the following (3):

Back 63

1. it occurs without intention

2. it occurs without conscious awareness

3. it does not interfere with other mental activity

Front 64

photoreceptors

Back 64

cells that respond to light and are found on the retina

Front 65

rods

Back 65

-higher sensitivity

-lower acuity

-color-blind

-found in the periphery of the retina

Front 66

cones

Back 66

-lower sensitivity

-higher acuity

-color-sensitive

-found in the fovea

Front 67

neurons in the eye

Back 67

- photoceptors

- bipolar cells

- ganglion cells and the optic nerve

Front 68

the what system of visual processing:

Back 68

- is concerned with the identification of objects

- involves an occipital-temporal pathway

- damage to this system can result in visual agnosia

Front 69

the where system of visual processing:

Back 69

- is concerned with determining the locations of objects and guiding our actions in response

- involves an occipital-parietal pathway

- damage to this system can result in problems with reaching for seen objects

Front 70

Gestalt principle: parallelism & symmetry

Back 70

parallel and/or symmetric contours are likely to belong to the same object

Front 71

Gestalt principle: common fate

Back 71

elements that move in the same direction group together

Front 72

Gestalt principle: synchrony

Back 72

elements that change at the same time group together

Front 73

illusory contours

Back 73

edges not in the sensory signal

being filled in by cognitive processing

Front 74

proximity principle

Back 74

proximity has to be perceived by some higher level cognitive process

Front 75

classical configural cues

Back 75

- convexity

- surroundedness

- size

- symmetry

- parallelism

- wide base

- lower region

- protrusion

- familiarity