Introduction To Psychology - 8Th Edition - Rod Plotnik - Chapter 6

Front 1

ames room

Back 1

named after its designer, shows that our perception of size can be distorted by changing depth cues.

Front 2

apparent motion

Back 2

an illusion that a stimulus or object is moving in space when, in fact, the stimulus or object is stationary. The illusion of apparent motion is created by rapidly showing a series of stationary images, each of which has a slightly different position or posture than the one before.

Front 3

atmospheric perspective

Back 3

a monocular depth cue that is created by the presence of dust, smog, clouds, or water vapor. We perceive clearer objects as being nearer, and we perceive hazy or cloudy objects as being farther away.

Front 4

binocular depth cues

Back 4

depend on the movement of both eyes (bi means “two”; ocular means “eye”).

Front 5

brightness constancy

Back 5

refers to the tendency to perceive brightness as remaining the same in changing illumination.

Front 6

clairvoyance

Back 6

the ability to perceive events or objects that are out of sight.

Front 7

closure rule

Back 7

states that, in organizing stimuli, we tend to fill in any missing parts of a figure and see the figure as complete.

Front 8

color constancy

Back 8

refers to the tendency to perceive colors as remaining stable despite differences in lighting.

Front 9

continuity rule

Back 9

states that, in organizing stimuli, we tend to favor smooth or continuous paths when interpreting a series of points or lines

Front 10

convergence

Back 10

refers to a binocular cue for depth perception based on signals sent from muscles that turn the eyes. To focus on near or approaching objects, these muscles turn the eyes inward, toward the nose. The brain uses the signals sent by these muscles to determine the distance of the object.

Front 11

cultural influences

Back 11

persuasive pressures that encourage members of a particular society or ethnic group to conform to shared behaviors, values, and beliefs.

Front 12

depth perception

Back 12

refers to the ability of your eye and brain to add a third dimension, depth, to all visual perceptions, even though images projected on the retina are in only two dimensions, height and width.

Front 13

extrasensory perception (ESP)

Back 13

a group of psychic experiences that involve perceiving or sending information (images) outside normal sensory processes or channels. ESP includes four general abilities—telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis.

Front 14

figure-ground rule

Back 14

states that, in organizing stimuli, we tend to automatically distinguish between a figure and a ground: The figure, with more detail, stands out against the background, which has less detail.

Front 15

Ganzfeld procedure

Back 15

a controlled method for eliminating trickery, error, and bias while testing telepathic communication between a sender—the person who sends the message—and a receiver—the person who receives the message.

Front 16

Gestalt psychologists

Back 16

believed that our brains follow a set of rules that specify how individual elements are to be organized into a meaningful pattern, or perception.

Front 17

illusion

Back 17

a perceptual experience in which you perceive an image as being so strangely distorted that, in reality, it cannot and does not exist. An illusion is created by manipulating the perceptual cues so that your brain can no longer correctly interpret space, size, and depth cues.

Front 18

impossible figure

Back 18

a perceptual experience in which a drawing seems to defy basic geometric laws.

Front 19

interposition

Back 19

a monocular cue for depth perception that comes into play when objects overlap. The overlapping object appears closer and the object that is overlapped appears farther away.

Front 20

just noticeable difference, or JND

Back 20

the smallest increase or decrease in the intensity of a stimulus that a person is able to detect.

Front 21

light and shadow

Back 21

make up monocular cues for depth perception: Brightly lit objects appear closer, while objects in shadows appear farther away.

Front 22

linear perspective

Back 22

a monocular depth cue that results as parallel lines come together, or converge, in the distance.

Front 23

monocular depth cues

Back 23

are produced by signals from a single eye. Monocular cues most commonly arise from the way objects are arranged in the environment

Front 24

motion parallax

Back 24

a monocular depth cue based on the speed of moving objects. We perceive objects that appear to be moving at high speed as closer to us than those moving more slowly or appearing stationary.

Front 25

perception

Back 25

the experience we have after our brain assembles and combines thousands of individual, meaningless sensations into a meaningful pattern or image. However, our perceptions are rarely exact replicas of the original stimuli. Rather, our perceptions are usually changed, biased, colored, or distorted by our unique set of experiences. Thus, perceptions are our personal interpretations of the real world.

Front 26

perceptual constancy

Back 26

refers to our tendency to perceive sizes, shapes, brightness, and colors as remaining the same even though their physical characteristics are constantly changing.

Front 27

perceptual sets

Back 27

learned expectations that are based on our personal, social, or cultural experiences. These expectations automatically add information, meaning, or feelings to our perceptions and thus change or bias our perceptions.

Front 28

phi movement

Back 28

the illusion that lights that are actually stationary seem to be moving. This illusory movement, which today is called apparent motion, is created by flashing closely positioned stationary lights at regular intervals.

Front 29

precognition

Back 29

the ability to foretell events.

Front 30

proximity rule

Back 30

states that, in organizing stimuli, we group together objects that are physically close to one another.

Front 31

psi

Back 31

the processing of information or transfer of energy by methods that have no known physical or biological mechanisms and that seem to stretch the laws of physics.

Front 32

psychokinesis

Back 32

the ability to exert mind over matter—for example, by moving objects without touching them. Together, these psychic powers or extrasensory perceptions are called psi phenomena.

Front 33

real motion

Back 33

your perception of any stimulus or object that actually moves in space.

Front 34

relative size

Back 34

a monocular cue for depth that results when we expect two objects to be the same size and they are not. In that case, the larger of the two objects will appear closer and the smaller will appear farther away.

Front 35

retinal disparity

Back 35

refers to a binocular depth cue that depends on the distance between the eyes. Because of their different positions, each eye receives a slightly different image. The difference between the right and left eyes’ images is the retinal disparity. The brain interprets a large retinal disparity to mean a close object and a small retinal disparity to mean a distant object.

Front 36

rules of organization

Back 36

were identified by Gestalt psychologists, specify how our brains combine and organize individual pieces or elements into a meaningful perception.

Front 37

self-fulfilling prophecies

Back 37

involve having strong beliefs about changing some behavior and then acting, unknowingly, to change that behavior.

Front 38

self-fulfilling prophecy

Back 38

a strong belief or making a statement (prophecy) about a future behavior and then acting, usually unknowingly, to fulfill or carry out the behavior.

Front 39

sensation

Back 39

our first awareness of some outside stimulus. An outside stimulus activates sensory receptors, which in turn produce electrical signals that are transformed by the brain into meaningless bits of information.

Front 40

Shape constancy

Back 40

refers to your tendency to perceive an object as retaining its same shape even though when you view it from different angles, its shape is continually changing its image on the retina.

Front 41

similarity rule

Back 41

states that, in organizing stimuli, we group together elements that appear similar.

Front 42

simplicity rule

Back 42

states that stimuli are organized in the simplest way possible.

Front 43

Size constancy

Back 43

refers to our tendency to perceive objects as remaining the same size even when their images on the retina are continually growing or shrinking.

Front 44

structuralists

Back 44

believed that you add together hundreds of basic elements to form complex perceptions. They also believed that you can work backward to break down perceptions into smaller and smaller units, or elements.

Front 45

subliminal message

Back 45

a brief auditory or visual message that is presented below the absolute threshold, which means that there is less than a 50% chance that the message will be perceived.

Front 46

subliminal stimulus

Back 46

an intensity that gives a person less than a 50% chance of detecting the stimulus.

Front 47

telepathy

Back 47

the ability to transfer one’s thoughts to another or to read the thoughts of others.

Front 48

texture gradient

Back 48

a monocular depth cue in which areas with sharp, detailed texture are interpreted as being closer and those with less sharpness and poorer detail are perceived as more distant.

Front 49

threshold

Back 49

a point above which a stimulus is perceived and below which it is not perceived. The threshold determines when we first become aware of a stimulus.

Front 50

transduction

Back 50

refers to the process in which a sense organ changes, or transforms, physical energy into electrical signals that become neural impulses, which may be sent to the brain for processing.

Front 51

virtual reality

Back 51

a perceptual experience of being inside an object, moving through an environment, or carrying out some action that is created or simulated by computer.