Cognitive Psychology

Paper: V
Code: PSY. 555
Credit: 3
Full Marks: 100 (Theory: 60 + Practical: 40)
Teaching Hours: 48
 Unit 2: Perception
1. Perception: figure- ground organization
2. Perceptual development: Nature–nurture controversy
3. Cognitive and motivational influences on perception:
Instruction, target identification, and perceptual defense
4. Perceptions without awareness
5. Space, Time and Movement perception: theoretical
perspectives
 Sensation and Perception
• Everything we do is dependent upon information encoded in messages from our
receptors.
• Receptors are often regarded as ‘gateway to knowledge”, which provides
information about the world around us.
• Visual (eyes), auditory (ears), olfactory (nose), gustatory (mouth) and cutaneous
(skin) are the main five senses used to provide sensation to the body.
• Sensation is divided into five parts: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching.
• Our activity (mental and physical) is dependent upon sensory organs.
• Sensation is the detection of information about external and internal
environment and the transmission of that information to the brain.
• Sensation is the process by which our sense organs receive information from
the environment.
• Sensation refers to the activation of receptors. Receptors are the basic
structure of sensation.
 Sensation and Perception
• Perception is regarded as a window to outside world and a
preparation for appropriate behavior.
• Perception= Sensation + Meaning
• Perception is the meaning and analysis of the information, we
receive through sensations.
• Perception is a complex cognitive process within which sensation,
attention and meaning are located.
• It is the process of organizing and attempting to understand the
sensory stimulation we receive.
 Sensation and Perception
• Perception is explained as the process of: i) extraction of stimulus information ii)
discriminating stimulus iii) organizing information iv) interpreting stimulus v)
awareness/knowledge of the world vi) appreciating the stimulus vii) preparing to react
appropriately.
• The brain receives a jumble of sensory impressions without meaning. These
impressions need to be organized and categorized into a meaningful pattern of
interpretation and understanding.
• The process of perception starts with sensation. When the sensation is given a meaning
or when the sensation interacts with our intelligence, then we perceive it.
• We are sensitive to all stimuli but we can only perceive some. We perceive stimuli on
the basis of interest and priority.
• Studies have shown that perception is highly dependent upon immediate importance,
interests and emotions.
• Perception depends upon a person’s personality, interest and culture interacting with
the stimuli.
 Sensation vs Perception
Perception is impossible without sensation. But everything that we sense is not provided.
Many stimuli are constantly being sensed in the environment but not everything is given
attention to.

Sensation Perception
Primary Process Secondary Process
Simple Process Complex Process
Biological process and not affected by Psychological process and learning plays a
learning huge role

Sensation in general is similar in everyone Perception is not the same in everyone

The process of sensation is limited Perception can be widespread
 Features/Characteristic
• Perception is a process
• Perception is preparation to response
• Perception involves sensation
• Perception provides organization
• Perception is highly individualized
• Perception depends upon the changes in the environment
• Perception involves sensation, attention and meaning
• Perception depends upon selection
• Perception is guided by an affective domain of the brain
 Factors influencing perception
• Factors related to the perceiver: Attitudes, motives, interest,
emotion, experience, expectations, mood

• Factors related to the stimulus: Size, background, novelty,

movement, sound, size, nearness, similarity, attractiveness,
proximity

• Situational factors: time, environment, socio-cultural factors

Process of Perception
• Receptor Process: Receiving stimuli
• Symbolic Process: Representing or substituting original meaning
• Affective Process: Emotional aspects of the stimuli
• Organization Process: Integrating to perceive a meaningful whole
 Perceptual Processing
• Top-down processing: Processing which makes use of stored knowledge and
schemas to interpret an incoming stimulus.
• It involves the generation of schemas by the higher cortical structures, and these
schemas are sent down the nervous system for comparison with the incoming
stimulus.
• It is also called schema driven or conceptually driven processing.
• Bottom-up processing: Processing which is directed by information contained within
the stimulus.
• It is initiated by stimulation at the ‘bottom end’ of the nervous system (i.e. the sense
organs), which then progresses up towards the higher cortical areas.
• Bottom-up processing is also known as stimulus-driven or data-driven processing,
because it is the incoming stimulus which sets off some appropriate form of
processing.
• One obvious difference between ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ processing is that their
information flows in opposite directions.
 Attention
• We are surrounded by multiple stimuli. It is impossible to react to all the stimuli
of the environment at any given moment. Some of them must be filtered out.
We must be selective. Only certain stimuli gain our attention.
• Attention is the process of focusing perception on a limited number of stimuli.
• Attention, also known as selective perception is simply preferentially
responding to some stimulus.
• Attention is defined as the process through which we select some information
for more detailed inspection, while ignoring other information.
• It is the process which makes us select some stimulus from environment for
perception.
• The process of attention compels us to focus on particular stimulus in the
environment, because it is not possible to focus on all stimuli at a time,
attention makes it easier by making us focus on some stimulus.
 Attention
• There are basically three types of attention:
• Involuntary: takes place automatically without our will or without any efforts.
• Voluntary: takes place voluntarily or effort fully.
• Habitual: It is a type of involuntary attention that occurs as a results of our
habits.
 Factors influencing Attention
• External or Objective Determinant:
• Nature of stimulus
• Intensity
• Size
• Duration
• Novelty
• Repetition
• Change
• Movement
• Location
• Contrast
 Factors influencing Attention
• Internal or Subjective Determinant:
• Motives or Needs
• Interests/Priorities
• Habits
• Moods and Emotions
 Perceptual Organization
• We perceive objects in the environment as having different pattern, shapes,
size, depth, constancy, movement.
• Various factors in the environment contribute to give organization and
meaning to perceive the features. These organizing factors are crucial for
determining the world we perceive.
• The process of perceiving is thus the process of perceptual organization.
• Perceptual organization includes the processes that are involved during
perceiving a stimulus.
• A proper arrangement and organization to make the stimulus meaningful is
the function of perceptual organization.
• A person as a result of this perceives the object as a whole out of pieces of
stimuli.
 Perceptual Organization
• Perceptual organization integrates sensations into meaningful perceptual
units (percepts), locates them in space and preserves their meaning.
• Through perceptual organization, we process placing people and objects into
recognizable and manageable patterns and categories.
• Gestalt psychologists like Max Wertheimer, Kurt Kofta and Wolfgang Kohler
were the first to study the formal principles that govern form perception.
• According to Gestalt psychologists, the whole is always greater than the sum
of its parts, meaning that we tend to look at the whole rather than the
individual parts and while doing so it gives us a greater meaning.
• Our tendency is to look at the whole rather than the component parts and
through this we can have a greater understanding or meaning of the things
that we perceive.
 Perceptual Organization
• Perceptual organization is categorized into four major types:
• Form Perception:
• Figure and Ground Relationship
• Laws of Grouping
• Depth or Distance Perception
• Motion Perception
• Perceptual Constancy
 Perceptual Organization
• Gestalt Psychology: An approach to psychology that focuses on the
organization of perception and thinking in a whole sense rather than on
the individual elements of perception.
• Gestalt psychologists emphasize how perceptions are organized and
instead of considering the individual parts that make up thinking, gestalt
psychologists took the opposite task studying how people consider
individual elements together as units or whole.
• The whole is always greater than sum of its parts.
• It means that our perception or understanding of objects is greater and
more meaningful than the individual elements that make up our
perception.
• Gestalt psychologists have made substantial contributions to our
understanding of perception.
 Figure Ground Relationship
• It is concerned with perceiving figure through visual stimulus.
• It involves distinguishing an object from its surroundings.
• The principle states that part of stimulus appear to stand out as an
object (figure) against a less prominent background (ground).
• When you perceive an object, the area around the object becomes
the background.
• The centre of our attraction is called the figure and the rest is
indistinct background called the ground.
 Characteristics of Figure Ground Relationship
• Figure is the first perceptual task to perceive any object and distinct
from its surroundings (ground).
• Figure is the focus of our attention, the ground constitutes the
remainder of our perception.
• Figure tends to be smaller, more colourful, meaningful and brighter
than the ground.
• Figure is perceived as near to the person and ground far away from
it.
• Figure is distinct and perceived on top of the ground.
• Figure has definite shape and location whereas ground seems to
spread all over the infinite.
 Laws of Grouping
• Laws of Proximity: Stimuli which are nearer to each other are likely
to be perceived as one whole pattern from other stimuli which
have a distance between them.
 Laws of Grouping
• Laws of Similarity: Similar items are grouped in a single group to
give meaning. We group objects according to their alikeness.
 Laws of Grouping
• Laws of Closure: While confronting an incomplete pattern, one
tends to complete or close the sensory gaps present in the sensory
stimulus.
 Laws of Grouping
• Laws of Continuity: The law of continuity holds that points that are
connected by straight or curving lines are seen in a way that follows
the smoothest path. In other words, elements in a line or curve
seem more related to one another than those positioned randomly.
 Laws of Grouping
• Laws of Simplicity (Laws of Pragnanz or Laws of Good Figure): This
foundational principle states that you will naturally perceive things
in their simplest form or organization. This law holds that when
you're presented with a set of ambiguous or complex objects, your
brain will make them appear as simple as possible.
 Laws of Grouping
• Laws of Common Fate: This principle is concerned with moving
objects. The elements that move in the same direction are
perceived as belonging together and forming a figure.
 Laws of Grouping
• Laws of Common Region: This principle states that we tend to
group objects together if they're located in the same bounded area.
When elements are located in the same closed region, we perceive
them as belonging to the same group.
 Perceptual Development
• People have wondered for a very long time how our perceptual abilities develop.
• There are two broad classes of explanation: The Nativist (nature; genetic; built-in)
explanation says that our brains are built to recognize stimuli by their design and
construction. The Empiricist (nurture; experience; learned) explanation states that
we learn through experience how to perceive.
• The basic Nativist experiment is to determine how much very young animals
(including humans) are able to perceive, and it turns out they can perceive quite a
bit before they have much chance to learn anything.
• The visual cliff experiment is one such experiment. As early as you can test them
most animals (including humans) avoid the visually deep side of the visual cliff,
indicating that they perceive visual depth and that visual depth dominates over the
touch information indicating solid support.
• Similar studies show that babies recognize faces. Babies also recognize when an
object is coming directly at the face. Such experiments show that the brain has
considerable perceptual capacities before babies have the chance to learn much.
 Perceptual Development: Visual Cliff
• Gibson and Walk (1960) designed an experimental method to study whether
young humans and animal neonates can perceive depth.
• The question was do humans bring the ability to perceive depth by birth or
do they learn it later?
• They used 36 infants between 6 and 14 months old, who could already crawl.
• They developed the apparatus consisting of wooden box over which thick
glass was placed. To bring about the depth cue, there was a change of level
under the glass.
• The infant was put in the middle and called by the mother from the end of
deep or shallow side.
• If the babies crawled over the shallow end and refuse to crawl over the deep
end, it suggests that they perceive depth.
Perceptual Development: Visual Cliff
 Perceptual Development: Visual Cliff
• Out of 36 infants, 9 did not crawl over any end.
• Among the 27 movers, only three crawled over the deep side.
• Rest of the 24 moved to the shallow end.
• When the mother called over to the deep end, many infants crawled away,
others stayed in the middle and cried.
• Some infants peered through the glass and moved away, some patted the
glass and still did not go to the deep end.
• Thus, the study concluded that humans children can perceive depth by six
months.
• Animal neonates can perceive depth immediately few hours after they are
born.
 Perceptual Development
• The basic Empiricist experiment is to determine the effects of depriving developing
animals from perceptual stimulation.
• Many such studies have been done, and they consistently show that the more and
the longer the perceptual deprivation, the more severe the resulting perceptual
deficit. This result shows that perceptual stimulation is necessary for normal adult
perception.
• Humans are sometimes born without sight because of a clouded cornea.
Operations were developed earlier this century to replace the cloudy cornea with a
clear one, giving these people sight. These "experiments of nature" have the same
result: These people can see but not perceive.
• They slowly learn to recognize objects, but the recognition is quite easily disturbed.
Putting the objects into a different context or even a different colored light is
enough to slow down or prevent recognition.
• So it appears that perceptual capacities depend on built-in brain organization and
perceptual stimulation. This can be understood but the "use it or lose it" principle.
The perceptual capacities present at birth must be used to strengthen and sharpen
them. If they are not used they are lost.
 Perceptual Development
• Perception is the use of the senses to acquire information or knowledge
about the external world.
• Questions of perception can be asked at a basic level, such as how the five
senses respond to external stimulation, or at a higher level, such as how do
we determine depth or object shape.
• Questions of development focus on what capabilities humans have at the
beginning of life and how the growing child comes to achieve adult levels.
• Much of the research on perceptual development has focused on the first
year or so of life, in part to answer intriguing questions about the roles of
biological mechanisms and experience in directing development.
• Historically, the debate has centered on whether an ability is inborn (innate)
or whether it emerges after birth as the result of specific experiences. This
debate has been termed the nature–nurture controversy, and it has
pervaded how we attempt to understand the mechanisms underlying
perceptual development.
 Perceptual Development
• Two general views of perceptual development provide examples of the
nature–nurture controversy.
• One view – termed constructivism – emphasizes the construction of
perception through learning.
• For the constructivist view, the starting point is trying to make sense of
sensations.
• In every day experience, our senses are bombarded with stimulation, and
the perceiver’s task is to make meaning of this stimulation. Over time, the
young or naive perceiver begins to bring order to this barrage of information.
• A prediction for development based on this view is that development of
perception is protracted and likely to be reliant on specific experiences.
 Perceptual Development
• A second view – termed ecological – starts at a very different point.
• The basic premise is that the perceiver is awash in information and humans
evolved to pick up this information.
• Predictions for development based on this view are that some abilities may
be present at birth and those that emerge later are based on a fine-tuning of
perceptual processes rather than the emergence of those processes.
• One limiting factor that is not directly addressed by these views is biological
maturation.
• Some abilities are not present at birth due to physical maturation of
perceptual systems, such as vision.
• Thus, a complete story of perceptual development takes into account,
physical maturation, the role of experience, and a developing sensitivity to
information.
 Perceptual Development
• Gibsons direct theory says that all the information we need is already out
there. He proposed differentiation theory to explain how this innate system
develops.
• At first infants over generalize and see everything as the same but with
experience they can see differences between objects and events. Continued
exposure makes you realize what is different between objects and results in
differentiation.
• Gregory's indirect theory is that we do not have enough in the environment
to make sense of it - we need to rely on our past experiences and
expectations to make sense of the world.
• Experience has an effect on perceptual abilities. eg older babies and people
living in urban environments showed more advanced abilities to interpret
depth cues, though this may be due to the process of maturation (nature)
rather than enrichment (nurture).
 Perceptual Development
• Gopnik and Meltzoff (1997) combine the two positions with their 'theory' theory,
proposing that infants do have substantial innate knowledge, but perceptual
development needs the construction of hypotheses which are tested against
reality.
• Hubel and Wiesel (1962) found that the perceptual abilities of a cat were based on
an innate system.
• Infants have much more developed perceptual systems than we once thought,
supporting the nature debate
• Cross cultural research also indicates that perceptual abilities are largely universal
and innate.
• We are born as a blank slate (tabula rasa). The belief that at birth, all humans are
born with the ability to become literally anything or anyone. This belief downplays
the effects of genetics and biology on the development of the human personality.
Instead, we are seen as the product of our upbringing and experiences.
Cognitive and Motivational Influences on Perceptions
• What is being perceived is influenced by several factors.
• Interpretation of an object, event, people is heavily influenced by personal
characteristics of the perceiving person.
• Each person is unique and has personal experiences and abilities to perceive
and interpret the stimulus.
• A person’s characteristics that affect perception includes attitudes,
personality types, motives, interest, mood, past experiences, expectations.
• We perceive the world as we are. The world is interpreted by each person
according to his personality make up and psychological system along with
immediate needs and expectations.
• Thus, what we perceive is influenced by cognitions and motivations of the
person.
 Cognitive and Motivational Influences on Perceptions
• Perceptual Context
• It provides meaning and value to objects, events, situations and
other people in the environment.
• Different meaning in different situations.
• Perceptual Defense
• A person may establish a defense against some stimuli or
situation because they may be clashing with his personal values
or culture or may be threatening.
• It includes denial, modification and distortion, change in
perception, recognition but refusal to change.
 Social Cognition and Social Influences
• Sensation and Perception is the process of knowing the world around us and
it focuses on physical world.
• Individuals also perceive other human beings and such perception is
different from object perception.
• Perceiving other people is influenced by other persons, socio-cultural factors
and other factors.
• Social influence is the influence other people make on our emotions,
opinions and behaviors.
• Many times we are not aware of social influence and its impact on our
perception and behavior. For e.g. socialization.
• Social conformity, social compliance, peer pressure, obedience, persuasion,
leadership are the topics of social influence. The understanding of such
topics helps in understanding how people think, feel and behave in social
situations.
 Social Cognition
• Social cognition is about how people understand and make sense of others
and themselves.
• The study of social cognition is used in understanding wide variety of topics
from attitudes, group, prejudice and stereotypes.
• The steps in social cognition (inferences) includes:
• Gathering information
• Deciding what information to use
• Integrating the information
• Making judgements of social stimuli
• The process of making cognitive inference is not easy as there can be a lot of
biases.
• Because of complexity of social cognition and chances of biases, social
perception is more complex and complicated than object perception.
 Social Cognition
• There are three major approaches to study social cognition.
• Person Perception: It examines the traits the individual possess and
combining them to try to make an overall impression of the
person.
• Attribution Approach: It examines the cause of perceived person’s
behavior and makes judgement based on the conclusion of the
perceiver.
• Schema Approach: The image of the person is made in which the
perceiver can use cognitive short cut to evaluate the person.
Approach Focus Major Question Major Guiding
(Perceiver) Principles

Person Self and other How are traits combined Rational combination of
Perception perception to form an overall trait information
Approach perception?
Attribution Understanding What are the causes of Attribution of cause of
Approach people by behavior? behavior (internal) or
interpreting external
their behavior
Schema Organize and How is the meaning of Understanding behavior
Approach interpret the behavior and traits through interpretation of
information and interpreted? meaning
store it in
memory for
future use
 Social Perception
• Social Perception is the process through which we seek to know and
understand other persons.
• It is the part of perception that allows us to understand the individual and
groups of our social world.
• In other words, it is the process through which we form impressions of
others and interpret information about them.
• Social perception allows us to determine how people will affect our personal
lives.
• Three most important forms of social perception are:
• Understanding person’s current feeling, mood, emotions
• Understanding the cause behind the behavior
• Making impression of others
 Social Perception (Experiments)
• In a study by David Rosenhan, eight pseudo patients gained entry into
mental hospitals by claiming to hear voices.
• During the intake interview, they gave true accounts of their backgrounds,
life experiences and psychological conditions. They only faked their names
and their complaints of hearing voices.
• In the psychiatric ward, they did not show any signs of abnormality. They
reported that the voices had stopped, talked normally with other patients
and made observations in their notebooks.
• The other patients in the ward suspected that the investigators were not ill
but the staff did not.
• Even upon discharge, they were diagnosed as schizophrenic.
 Social Perception (Experiments)
• Rosenhan described his results to other mental hospitals and told them that
they would be visited by a pseudopatients in the next three months and
challenged them to identify who it was.
• During the 3 months, 193 patients were admitted and the hospital found 41
pseudopatients.
• In reality, Rosenhan had sent nobody.
• In deciding how to classify the patients, the staff doctors were engaged in
social perception.
• Social perception refers to the processes through which we use available
information to form impression of other people and to assess what they are
like.
• Social perception is an important determinant of attitude, stereotypes and
prejudices.
 Social Influence
• Social influence means use of social power to change the attitude or
behavior of others in a particular direction.
• Social influence occurs when one’s emotions, opinions, or behaviors are
affected by others.
• Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity,
socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales and
marketing and so on.
• The idea, view, attitude and behavior of people can be changed through
social influence.
• Some examples of social influence are: attitude change through persuasion,
conformity to group, compliance to person.
 Attitude
• Psychologists define attitude as learned tendency to evaluate
things in a certain way.
• This can include evaluation of people, issues, objects or events.
• Such evaluations are often positive or negative but they can also be
uncertain at times.
• Attitudes are evaluations of a particular person, behavior, belief or
concept.
• Attitudes can be defined as “a relatively enduring organization of
beliefs, feelings and behavioral tendencies towards socially
significant objects, groups, events or symbols.”
 Attitudes
• The way you think and feel about someone or something.
• Most simply understood attitudes in psychology are the feelings
individuals have about themselves and the world.
• An attitude refers to a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors
toward a particular object, person, thing, or event.
• Attitudes are often the result of experience or upbringing, and
they can have a powerful influence over behavior.
• Attitudes are important because many times attitudes strongly
influences social thought and behavior.
 Attitudes
• There are various factors influencing attitude formation
• Experience: Attitudes form directly as a result of experience. They may
emerge due to direct personal experience, or they may result from
observation.
• Social Factors: Social roles and social norms can have a strong influence on
attitudes. Social roles relate to how people are expected to behave in a
particular role or context. Social norms involve society's rules for what
behaviors are considered appropriate.
• Learning: Attitudes can be learned in a variety of ways.
• Conditioning: Operant conditioning can also be used to influence how
attitudes develop.
• Observation: People also learn attitudes by observing people around them.
When someone you admire greatly espouses a particular attitude, you are
more likely to develop the same beliefs.
 Attitudes
• Attitudes structure can be described in terms of three components.
• Affective component: this involves a person’s feelings / emotions about the
attitude object. For example: “I am scared of spiders”.
• Behavioral component: the way the attitude we have influences on how we
act or behave. For example: “I will avoid spiders and scream if I see one”.
• Cognitive component: this involves a person’s belief / knowledge about an
attitude object. For example: “I believe spiders are dangerous”.
• This model is known as the ABC model of attitudes.
• Affective Component: How the object, person, issue, or event makes you
feel
• Behavioral Component: How attitude influences your behavior
• Cognitive Component: Your thoughts and beliefs about the subject
 Stereotype
• A stereotype is “...a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class
of people.” (Cardwell, 1996).
• The use of stereotypes is a major way in which we simplify our social world; since
they reduce the amount of processing (i.e. thinking) we have to do when we meet
a new person.
• By stereotyping we infer that a person has a whole range of characteristics and
abilities that we assume all members of that group have. Stereotypes lead to social
categorization, which is one of the reasons for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and
“us” mentality) which leads to in-groups and out-groups.
• One advantage of a stereotype is that it enables us to respond rapidly to situations
because we may have had a similar experience before.
• One disadvantage is that it makes us ignore differences between individuals;
therefore we think things about people that might not be true (i.e. make
generalizations).
 Prejudice
• The word prejudice comes from Latin word prejudium which means
prejudgment.
• Prejudice is passing a judgment in advance without sufficient information.
• It is making judgment long before coming to contact and predicting the
group by over simplified traits.
• In prejudice, people are judged and liked or disliked simply because they
belong to some specific group and they possesses specific traits.
• A prejudice is a composite of stereotypes, myths and legends in which the
group label or symbol is used to classify, characterize or define an individual
or group considered as a totality.
• Prejudice contains misunderstanding and biases. It is unscientific, unfounded
judgment and the decision is based on certain traits possessed by the group.
 Conformity and Compliance
• Conformity is a type of social influence in which the individuals change his or
her belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group.
• In conformity, there is a desire in the individual to follow the belief or
standards of other people.
• Group conformity provides a sense of security and an identity. No one wants
to be isolated or rejected by the group.
• Compliance is a form of social influence in which one or more person accepts
direct request from others.
• It is a type of social influence where an individual does what someone else
wants them to do, following his or her request, suggestions, wish or demand.
• It is similar to obedience but there is no order only a request. Compliance
also leads to conformity.
 Perceptions without awareness
• Sensory system is well organized and designed to extract the information
from the environment. Information is important for survival.
• Each sense organ can detect many different kinds of stimuli with
considerable sensitivity. But each sense organ and its receptors cells have its
own functional limitations.
• It can only detect the stimuli which is powerful enough to excite the receptor
cells of the sense organs.
• The ability to detect the stimulus and differentiate it from one another is
studied in psychophysics.
• It is concerned with two kinds of sensitivity:
• Absolute limits of sensitivity
• Differences between stimuli
 Perceptions without awareness
• A sensory threshold is the level of strength a stimulus must reach to be
detected.
• Psychologists study sensory thresholds to learn how humans and animals
process sensory information.
• An absolute threshold is the lowest level of strength necessary for detection.
For example, when sounds are just loud enough to hear (but no louder), they
occur at the absolute threshold. Absolute thresholds vary according to
sensory adaptation (diminished sensitivity to stimulus after prolonged
exposure). Animals often have different absolute thresholds than people.
• The differential threshold is the point of lowest intensity at which one can
tell that a stimulus has strengthened.
 Absolute Threshold (Absolute Limen)
• The minimum value of a stimulus required to activate a given sensory system is called
absolute threshold or absolute limen. It is the weakest amount of stimulus that can
be sensed (borderline between undetectable & detectable).
• General absolute thresholds have been determined for humans. Many animals are
much more sensitive than humans to sensory stimuli.
• Our absolute thresholds for different stimuli vary from person to person. (some more
sensitive to certain sensory stimuli than others). Differences stem from psychological
and biological factors.
• A stimulus requires a minimum intensity to activate the receptor cells of a sense
organ; otherwise there would be no sensation and perception. That minimum
stimulus value which is required to activate the receptor cells of a sense organ is
called the absolute threshold or the stimulus threshold for that sense organ. In
German, it is called reiz limen (RL). A stimulus below this threshold value does not
activate the receptor cells of the sense organ, and hence, the sensation does not pass
on to the brain.
• Therefore, in order that a perceptual activity is conducted, the stimulus intensity must
reach the absolute threshold. The value of absolute threshold varies from person to
person, for different sense organs in the same person, and for varying internal and
organic conditions of a person.
 Absolute Threshold (Absolute Limen)
• For example, suppose a very dim and faint light is presented to you from a
distance; you may not be able to see the light. Now, the intensity of the light
is increased a bit; you also may not be able to see it. Intensity is increased a
bit further; you still do not see the light. Now, if the intensity of the light goes
on increasing this way, at one time you will be able to see the light.
• The light intensity which you can detect 50% of the times it is presented is
the absolute threshold for your perception of light.
• Thus, the absolute threshold is the least or minimum value of a stimulus
which is perceived by a person at least in fifty percent of presentations.
• This threshold for one person may not be the same for another person as
individuals differ from one another in relation to their absolute threshold
values for different senses.
 Absolute Threshold (Absolute Limen)
Senses Stimulus Receptors Absolute Threshold
Vision Electromagnetic Rods and Cons in A candle flame viewed from a
Energy Retina distance of 30 miles on a dark night
Auditory Sound Waves Hair cells of inner The ticking of a watch from 20 feet
ear away in a quiet room
Olfactory Chemical Receptors cells in One drop of perfume diffused
substances in air nose throughout a small house
Gustatory Chemical Taste buds on A teaspoon of sugar dissolved in 2
substances in tongue gallons of water
saliva
Cutaneous Pressure on skin Nerve endings in A wing of a fly falling on a cheek from
skin a height of one centimeter
Warmth and Cold Nerve endings in A one to two degree change in skin
skin temperature
 Differential Threshold (Differential Limen)
• Two stimuli of a particular kind may vary from each other in intensity, but
may not be perceived as different. For example, the brightness of two lights
may be different, but if the difference is very small we do not notice the
difference between them. Similarly, when we add a little more salt to our
curry, we may not notice a difference in saltiness of the curry.
• Thus, in order to actually notice a difference between two stimuli of the
same kind, we need a minimum difference in the intensity between the two
stimuli. The minimum difference in the intensity of two stimuli, which is
required to perceive them as different 50% of the times is called the
differential threshold or differential limen.
• Thus, the difference in stimulation produced by two similar stimuli should be
at least above this threshold to generate any kind of a stable difference in
sensation and perception of those stimuli.
 Differential Threshold (Differential Limen)
• The smallest difference in the value of two stimuli that is necessary
to notice them as different is called the difference threshold.
• In order to notice two stimuli as different from each other, there
has to be some minimum differences between the values of those
stimuli.
• The smallest difference in the value of two stimuli that is necessary
to notice them as different is called difference threshold.
• Peoples individual difference threshold vary slightly.
• For example: when you notice that the TV volume has been turned
up
• When you notice different shades of blue color side by side.
 Sensory Adaptation and Habituation
• Sensory Adaptation: The tendency for sensory receptors cells to
become less responsiveness to stimulation that is unchanging or
repetitious.
• Sensory adaptation is an adjustment in sensory capacity after
prolonged exposure to unchanging stimuli.
• It allows people to adjust to their environments
• Receptor cells become less responsive and keeps us from
responding to unimportant information
• Taste –sour candy almost too sour at first
• Smell -no longer smell gas leak
• Jump into a cold pond, then not seem so cold
 Sensory Adaptation and Habituation
• Habituation is a form of non-associative learning in which a
response to a stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged
presentations of that stimulus.
• Sensory habituation is a form of learning in which an organism
decreases or ceases to respond to a stimuli after repeated
presentations.
• Essentially, the organism learns to stop responding to a stimulus
which is no longer relevant.
• Sensory habituation is an adaptive behavior.
• It refers to the learned behavior in ignoring the stimuli. If the
stimuli is repeatedly exposed, the response to the stimuli stops.
• For e.g, habituation in exposure therapy in fear.
 Sensory Adaptation and Habituation
• There might be some confusion on adaptation and habituation.
• The key difference between them lies in whether the adjustment is a habit or
not.
Sensory Adaptation Sensory Habituation
Receptors change or reduce their sensitivity Pattern of decreased response to a stimulus
to a continuous, unchanging stimuli after frequently repeated exposure
This occurs in the brain This occurs in the body
Changes in the level of sensitivity to a Reduces responses to something that used
constant stimulus over time to elicit a stronger response
E.g. Adapting to hot or cold water after a E.g. Response to drugs
brief time in it
E.g. The eyes adjusting to a darker room E.g. You no longer respond to your favorite
while coming from bright light outside food as when we first had it
 Perceptions without awareness
• Sometimes, some stimulus is presented below the threshold yet it leaves
some impression on us.
• Since it is below the threshold it does not become conscious or we do not
become aware of it.
• Yet, it influences our thoughts, feelings and action. Such perceptual
phenomenon is called subliminal perception.
• People respond to such stimuli without awareness or conscious of it.
• It is also called subception or sublimal perception..
• The term subliminal is composed of Sub and Limen which means below and
threshold respectively.
• Subliminal perception occurs whenever stimuli presented below the
threshold or limen are found to influence thoughts, feelings or actions.
 Perceptions without awareness
• The registration of stimuli below the level of awareness, particularly stimuli
that are too weak (or too rapid) for an individual to consciously perceive
them.
• There has been much debate about whether responses to subliminal stimuli
actually occur and whether it is possible for subliminal commands or
advertising messages to influence behavior.
• Experimental evidence indicates that subliminal commands may not directly
affect behavior but it may prime later responses.
• The effect in which recent experience of a stimulus facilitates or inhibits later
processing of the same or a similar stimulus is called priming.
• Stimulation below the threshold of awareness that changes the probability
of the later occurrence of related cognitive tasks is called sublimal priming.
 Perceptions without awareness
• A subliminal stimulus is one that is so weak or brief that although is
received by the senses, it cannot be perceived consciously.
• The mind receives stimulation from our senses but not enough to
register in our conscious mind. Such perceptions are used in
advertisement.
• In one study, college students who were exposed to subliminal
presentation of aggressively toned words like “hit” and “attack”
later judged ambiguous behavior of others as more aggressive.
They were also more likely to behave aggressively than were
participants who had been exposed to subliminal nonaggressive
words.
 Perceptions without awareness
• The first documented findings suggesting an effect that has come to be called
“subliminal perception” (or perception without awareness) came from Pierce
and Jastrow's (1884) work testing the human response to very similar, barely
distinguishable stimuli.
• Pierce and Jastrow devised an experiment in which they each had to evaluate
which of two pressures on skin was greater, along with a reported confidence
level.
• The significant, and surprising, finding was that even when the subject indicated
that they were guessing (zero confidence, implied 50% chance), they were
actually correct about which pressure was greater more than 60% of the time.
• The subjects were consistently more accurate than chance, but were not aware
of any difference between the two stimuli.
• These findings were later confirmed by other researchers, stirring interest about
stimuli that were beneath the threshold of conscious awareness.
 Perceptions without awareness
• Popular interest in this field was spurred by the claims of a
marketing researcher, James Vicary (Merikle, 2000).
• In 1957, Vicary claimed that patrons at a movie theatre were
exposed to advertising messages Eat Popcorn and Drink Coca-Cola
flashed for 3 millisecond durations and repeated throughout a
movie.
• According to Vicary, patrons were not consciously aware of these
hidden messages but responded favorably by significantly
increasing their purchases of popcorn and drinks.
• There has not been any independent evidence to support the
claims, and Vicary himself stated that the research was a
fabrication (Merikle, 2000).
 Perceptions without awareness
• Cheesman and Merikle (1984) identify two classes of threshold measures: subjective
and objective which shows two different ways to evaluate whether a participant is
consciously aware of a stimulus.
• The subjective measure relies on the participant's self report of the existence of a
stimulus. In other words, the participant simply indicates whether or not they were
aware of the stimulus.
• A disadvantage of the subjective measure is that a response bias may lead the
participant to choose against reporting a stimulus when the participant feels
ambivalence.
• As a result, each person may gauge “awareness” using their own terms, meaning
inconsistencies among experiments.
• An objective measure, on the other hand, is obtained when the subject is forced to
choose between fixed alternatives or discriminate between several options – even if
they believe the options are equivalent.
• The objective threshold is “the level of detectability where perceptual information is
actually discriminated at a chance level.”
• This objective measure provides a lower threshold for conscious awareness, leading to
more conservative evaluations of when subliminal perception occurs.
 Space, Time and Movement Perceptions
• Space perception, process through which humans and other organisms
become aware of the relative positions of their own bodies and objects
around them.
• Space perception provides cues, such as depth and distance, that are
important for movement and orientation to the environment.
• Centuries of experimental research led to a more tenable conception in which
space was described in terms of three dimensions or planes: height (vertical
plane), width (horizontal plane), and depth (sagittal plane).
• These planes all intersect at right angles, and their single axis of intersection
is defined as being located within perceived three-dimensional space—that
is, in the “eye” of the perceiving individual.
• Humans do not ordinarily perceive a binocular space (a separate visual world
from each eye) but instead see a so-called Cyclopean space, as if the images
from each eye fuse to produce a single visual field akin to that of Cyclops, a
one-eyed giant in Greek mythology.
 Space, Time and Movement Perceptions
• The horizontal, vertical, and sagittal planes divide space into various sectors:
something is perceived as “above” or “below” (the horizontal plane), as “in
front of” or “behind” (the vertical plane), or as “to the right” or “to the left”
(of the sagittal plane).
• An early theory put forth by the Anglican bishop George Berkeley at the
beginning of the 18th century was that the third dimension (depth) cannot be
directly perceived by the eyes because the retinal image of any object is two-
dimensional.
• He held that the ability to have visual experiences of depth is not inborn but
can result only from logical deduction based on empirical learning through
the use of other senses such as touch.
• Although modern research fails to verify Berkeley’s emphasis on reason as
central to perception, contemporary theories still include both nativistic
(inborn) and empirical (learned through experience) considerations.
 Space, Time and Movement Perceptions
• The study of perceptual learning developed rapidly in the second half of the
19th century and still more rapidly during the 20th.
• Many psychologists who deal with perceptual function hold that the study of
space perception is rapidly becoming a distinct branch of psychology in its
own right.
• This special field within psychology concentrates on the factors contributing
to the perceived organization of objects in space (e.g., on cues to depth
perception, movement, form, colour, and their interactions) or dwells on
particularly interesting special problems such as that of a modal perception
(e.g., the question of how one perceives that there are six sides to a cube,
even though only three of them can be seen at a single time).
 Space, Time and Movement Perceptions
• The perception of space is based exclusively on vision.
• After closer study, however, this so-called visual space was found to be
supplemented perceptually by cues based on auditory (sense
of hearing), kinesthetic (sense of bodily movement), olfactory(sense of smell),
and gustatory (sense of taste) experience.
• Spatial cues, such as vestibular stimuli (sense of balance) and other modes for
sensing body orientation, also contribute to perception.
• No single cue is perceived independently of another; in fact, experimental
evidence shows these sensations combine to produce unified perceptual
experiences.
 Space, Time and Movement Perceptions
• Despite all this sensory input, most individuals receive the bulk of the
information about their environment through the sense of sight,
while balance or equilibrium (vestibular sense) apparently ranks next in
importance.
• For example, in a state of total darkness, an individual’s orientation in space
depends mainly on sensory data derived from vestibular stimuli.
• Visual stimuli most likely dominate human perception of space because
vision is a distance sense; it can supply information from extremely distant
points in the environment, reaching out to the stars themselves.
• Hearing is also considered a distance sense, as is smell, though the space
they encompass is considerably more restricted than that of vision. All the
other senses, such as touch and taste, are usually considered to be proximal
senses, because they typically convey information about elements that come
in direct contact with the individual.
 Depth or Distance Perception
• The ability to view the world in three dimensions and to
perceive distance is known as depth perception.
• It is largely due to the fact that we have two eyes and there is a
certain distance between the two eyes.
• Slightly different images are formed in the retina but the brain
integrates the two images into one single view and it recognizes
the difference in the images.
• The difference in the images seen by the right eye and the left
eye is known as binocular disparity (Retinal Disparity).
• Depth is perceived when the visual stimuli from each eye is
compared using both eyes.
 Depth or Distance Perception
• The process includes: Binocular Cues and Monocular
Cues.
• Binocular cues includes:
• Retinal Disparity
• Convergence
• Monocular cues includes:
• Interposition or overlap
• Aerial or atmospheric perspective
• Texture gradient
• Linear perspective
• Size cues or relative size
 Perceptual Constancy
• As we view an object, the image it projects on the retina of our eyes
changes with our varying distance and angle, light, orientation of the
object and other factors.
• Perceptual constancy allows us to perceive an object as roughly as the
same in spite of changes in the retinal image.
• The phenomena in which physical objects are perceived as unvarying and
consistent despite changes in their appearance or in the environment.
• It leads us to view objects as having unvarying shape, size, color and
brightness even if the image on our retina varies.
• Light Constancy
• Color Constancy
• Shape Constancy
• Size Constancy
 Motion Perception
• Motion or movement perception is a process through which humans and other
animals orient themselves to their own or other’s physical movements.
• Animals must perceive their own movements to balance themselves and to move
effectively and without such perceptual functions the chances of survival would
be sharply reduced.
• Movement perception is important for various reasons such as avoid collision
with moving objects, for figure-ground segregation, three-dimensional vision and
visual guidance of action.
• The primary cues for perceiving motion is the movement of the stimulus across
the retina.
• There are four ways to perceive movements:
• Retinal motion
• Apparent motion
• Induced motion
• Motion Aftereffect
 Motion Perception
• It is the process of inferring the speed and direction of objects that move in
a visual scene given some visual input.
• Monocular vision can detect nearby motion; however this type of vision is
poor at depth perception. For this reason, binocular vision is better at
perceiving motion from a distance.
• Movement perception, process through which humans and other animals
orient themselves to their own or others’ physical movements.
• Most animals, including humans, move in search of food that itself often
moves; they move to avoid predators and to mate. Animals must perceive
their own movements to balance themselves and to move effectively;
without such perceptual functions the chances for survival would be sharply
reduced.
• The eye is by far the most effective organ for sensing movement.
 Time Perception
• Time perception refers to a person’s subjective experience of the
passage of time, or the perceived duration of events, which can differ
significantly between different individuals and/or in different
circumstances.
• Although physical time appears to be more or less
objective, psychological time is subjective, exemplified by common
phrases like “time flies when you are having fun” and “a watched pot
never boils”.
• As a field of study within psychology and neuroscience, time perception
came of age in the late 19th century with the studies of the relationship
between perceived and measured time by one of the founders of
modern experimental psychology, Gustav Theodor Fechner.
• We do not so much perceive time itself, but changes in or the passage of
time, or what might be described as “events in time”.
 Time Perception
• In particular, we are aware of the temporal relations between events,
and we perceive events as being either simultaneous or successive. We
also have a perception of the sequence or order of these events.
• Our sense of time seems to have originated as a product of human
evolution, and it is not a purely automatic or innate process, but a
complex activity that we develop and actively learn as we grow.
• Humans are the only animals to be consciously aware of the passage of
time and to have a consciousness of the past that is anything more than
pure instinct and behavioural conditioning.
• Time perception is a fundamental element of human awareness. Our
consciousness, our ability to perceive the world around us and,
ultimately, our very sense of self are shaped upon our perception of
time in loop connecting memories of the past, present sensations and
expectations about the future. Yet, the way we perceive time is widely
debated.
Thank You