CHAPTER 1:

Sensation - the result of the physical interaction between the world and our bodies
Perception - the processing and interpretation of neural energy from sensations
Nativism: The mind produces ideas that are not derived from external sources, and that we have abilities
that are innate and not learned
Empiricism: The idea that all knowledge comes through the senses
Dualism: The idea that mind has an existence separate from the material world of the body
Materialism: The idea that the only thing that exists is matter, and that all things, including mind and
consciousness, are the results of interactions between bits of matter
Panpsychism: The idea that the mind exists as a property of all matter—that is, that all matter has
consciousness
Psychophysics: The science of defining quantitative relationships between physical and psychological
events
Absolute threshold: Minimum amount of stimulation necessary for a person to detect a stimulus 50% of
the time.
Two-point threshold: The minimum distance at which two stimuli (e.g., two simultaneous touches) can
be distinguished.
JND (just noticeable difference): The smallest detectable difference between two stimuli, or the
minimum change in a stimulus that can be correctly judged as different from a reference stimulus.
Signal detection theory: A psychophysical theory that quantifies the response of an observer to the
presentation of a signal in the presence of noise.
Signal detection theory makes a distinction between an observers’ ability to perceive a signal and their
willingness to report it:
Sensitivity: The ease with which an observer can tell the difference between two stimuli (or the
presence and absence of a stimulus).
Criterion: An internal threshold set by the observer. If the internal response is above criterion, the
observer gives one response (e.g., “yes, I feel that”). Below criterion, the observer gives another
response (e.g., “no, I feel nothing”).
Electroencephalography (EEG): Measures electrical activity from populations of many neurons using
many electrodes on the scalp.
Event-related potential (ERP): A measure of electrical activity from a subpopulation of neurons in
response to particular stimuli that requires averaging many EEG recordings.
Electrocorticography (ECoG) / Intracranial EEG:
• EEG recorded inside the skull on top of the dura mater.
• Performed by neurosurgeons to localise epileptic focus in pharmacologically intractable epilepsy.
Magnetoencephalography (MEG): Similar to EEG, but measures changes in magnetic activity across
populations of many neurons in the brain. Better localization than EEG, but more expensive.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): uses the responses of atoms to strong magnetic fields and radio
frequency pulses to form images of structures like the brain. Based on nuclear magnetic resonance
(NMR).
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) A variant of MRI that measures localized patterns of
activity in the brain. Activated neurons provoke increased blood flow, which can be quantified by
measuring changes of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood to strong magnetic fields.
Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal: The ratio of oxygenated to deoxygenated hemoglobin that
permits the localization of brain tissue that is most involved in a task.
Positron emission tomography (PET): Identifies neural activity by measuring the metabolism of brain
cells using safe radioactive isotopes.

CHAPTER 2:

Wave: disturbance propagates in space

Sound waves: are longitudinal oscillations of air molecules.
Light waves: involve transverse oscillations in electric and magnetic fields (i.e., electromagnetic
radiation)
Absorbed: Energy (e.g., light) that is taken up, and is not transmitted at all
Diffracted: Waves can bend around obstacles. Long wavelengths diffract more than short wavelengths.
Reflected: Energy that is redirected when it strikes a surface.
Transmitted: Energy that is passed on through a surface (when it is neither reflected nor absorbed by the
surface)
Refracted: Energy that is altered as it passes into another medium, (e.g., light entering water from the
air)
Light: A wave; a stream of photons, tiny particles that each consist of one quantum of energy
Cornea: The transparent “window” into the eyeball
Aqueous humour: The watery fluid in the anterior chamber
Pupil: The dark circular opening at the centre of the iris in the eye, where light enters the eye
Crystalline lens: The lens inside the eye, enables changing focus (controlled by ciliary muscle).
Vitreous humour: The transparent fluid that fills the vitreous chamber in the posterior part of the eye
Retina: A light-sensitive membrane in the back of the eye that contains rods and cones, which receive an
image from the lens and send it to the brain through the optic nerve.
Accommodation: The lens can change its shape, and thus alter the refractive power
Emmetropia: The happy condition of no refractive error
Myopia: Light focused in front of retina, distant objects cannot be seen sharply (i.e., nearsightedness)
Hyperopia: Light focused behind the retina, near objects cannot be seen sharply (i.e., farsightedness)
Astigmatism: A visual defect caused by the unequal curving of one or more of the refractive surfaces of
the eye, usually the cornea
Cataracts: loss of transparency in lens (solved with silicone implants)
Presbyopia: "old sight". Inability to accommodate nearby objects.
eyeball: Optics are similar to those in most cameras, including mechanisms for regulating the amount of
light and lens for adjusting focal length for viewing near and far objects.
Transduction: is the process in the eye whereby absorption of light in the retina is translated into
electrical signals that ultimately reach the brain.
Fundus: Using the ophthalmoscope, doctors can view the back surface of patients’ eyes
Photoreceptors: Cells in the retina that initially transduce light energy into neural energy.
Rods: Photoreceptors that are specialised for night vision
Cones: Photoreceptors that are specialised for daylight vision, fine visual acuity and color
Visual pigments: Light absorbing molecules created and used by photoreceptors
Chromophore: Light- catching part of pigment
4 kinds of pigment:Rhodopsin (rods) long, medium, short (cones)
Graded potentials: the more photons, the less neurotransmitter
Degrees of visual angleVision scientists measure size by how large an image appears on the retina
Diffuse bipolar cells: Receive input from multiple rods (up to 50).
Midget bipolar cells: Receive input from a single cone.
• On: responds to increases in light • Off: responds to decreases in light
Ganglion Cells: last stage before information leaves the eye and travels to and through the brain!
P ganglion cells: “Small cells” Connect to the parvocellular pathway: involved in fine visual acuity, colour,
and shape processing. Poor temporal resolution but good spatial resolution
M ganglion cells: “Large cells” Connect to the magnocellular pathway: involved in motion processing.
Excellent temporal resolution, but poor spatial resolution
Receptive field: The region in space in which stimuli will activate a neuron.
Retinitis pigmentosa: A family of hereditary diseases that involve the progressive death of
photoreceptors and degeneration of the pigment epithelium
Macular Degeneration: Degeneration of the "macula": central vision, sharp details

CHAPTER 3:
Acuity: The smallest spatial detail that can be resolved
Spatial Frequency: The number of cycles of a grating per unit of visual angle (usually specified in
degrees)
Contrast: The difference in illumination between a figure and its background.
Phase: Position of grating within a receptive field
Retinal Projection: The world is divided at the LGN: • Left side of space goes right • Right side of space
goes left
Topographical Mapping: Neural basis for knowing where things are located in space (i.e., specific neural
architecture for distinct locations in our visual field)
Ipsilateral: Referring to same side of body/brain
Contralateral: Referring to opposite side of body/brain
Striate Cortex – Known as primary visual cortex, striate cortex, and V1
Cortical Magnification: 1 degree of visual angle at fovea is processed by 15 times more neurons than 1
degree of visual angle just 10 degrees away from fovea.
Visual crowding: deleterious effect of clutter on peripheral object detection.
Orientation tuning: tendency of neurons in the striate cortex to respond optimally to certain
orientations and less to others.
End Stopping: Increased firing rate as bar length increases, but once longer than receptive field, firing
rate decreases.
Column: A vertical arrangement of neurons
Hypercolumn: • 1x1-mm block of striate cortex • many columns with preference for range of
orientations
Method of Adaptation: Measuring the diminishing response of a sense organ to a sustained stimulus
(without poking the brain)
Tilt aftereffect: Perceptual illusion of tilt, provided by adapting to a pattern of a given orientation
Selective Adaptation: Evidence that the human visual system contains neurons selective for spatial
frequency.
Visually evoked potentials (VEPs): electrical signals from the brain that are evoked by visual stimulation.
Strabismus: misalignment of eyes such that a single object in space is imaged on the fovea of one eye
and non-foveal area of the other (turned) eye.
Anisometropia: the two eyes have different refractive errors (e.g., one is hyperopic and the other not).
Cataract: clouding of the lens.
All three can lead to...
Amblyopia: A developmental disorder characterised by reduced spatial vision in an otherwise healthy
eye, even with proper correction for refractive error.

CHAPTER 4:
Middle vision: A loosely-defined stage of visual processing that comes after basic features have been
extracted from the image and before object recognition and scene understanding.
Illusory contour: A contour that is perceived even though nothing changes from one side of the contour
to the other in the image.
Gestalt grouping rules: Principles for grouping the seemingly chaotic multitude of perceptual
information into meaningful form (“Gestalt” in German)
Kurt Koffka’s maxim: "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts."
Good continuation: Two elements will tend to group together if they lie on the same contour.
Closure: Tendency to see complete figures or forms even if a picture is incomplete, partially hidden by
other objects
Texture segmentation: Carving an image into regions of common texture properties.
– Similarity – Proximity
Parallelism: Parallel contours are likely to belong to the same figure.
Symmetry: Symmetrical regions are more likely to be seen as figure.
Common region: Two features will group if they appear to be part of the same larger region
Connectedness: Two items will tend to group if they are connected
Common fate: Elements that move in the same direction tend to group together.
Synchrony: Elements that change at the same time tend to group together.
Common fate: group elements moving in the same direction together
Synchrony: group elements changing at the same time together
committee rules: Honour physics and avoid accidents
Ambiguous figure: Visual stimulus that gives rise to two or more interpretations of its identity or
structure Gestalt perception relies on laws of physics
Accidental viewpoint: Viewing position that produces some regularity in the visual image that is not
present in the world. Gestalt perception assumes viewpoints are not accidental
Canonical view: Some viewpoints are more easily recognized that others.
Camouflage: attempt to break Gestalt grouping rules so that its features are not perceived as an object
on their own, but as parts of a larger object or background.
Figure–ground assignment: The process of determining that some regions of an image belong to a
foreground object (figure) and other regions are part of the background (ground)
Nonaccidental feature: Object feature not dependent on the exact (or accidental) viewing position of
the observer. Provides clues to object structure.
Global superiority effect: The properties of the whole object take precedence over the properties of
parts of the object (e.g., Navon letters).
High-level vision: Match perceived to encoded representations
Middle vision: Group features into objects
Low-level vision: Determine features present in image
Naïve template theory: The proposal that the visual system recognizes objects by matching the neural
representation of the image with a stored representation of the same “shape” in the brain.
Structural description: A description of an object in terms of the nature of its constituent parts and the
relationships between those parts.
Recognition-by-components (RBC) model: Irving Biederman proposed that objects are recognized by
the identities and relationships of their component parts, called geons ("geometric ions”).
Categorization: is how we make sense of the world (how we turn sensation into meaning!)
Extrastriate cortex: Region of cortex bordering the primary visual cortex and containing multiple areas
involved in visual processing
Inferotemporal (IT) cortex: Lower portion of the temporal lobe, part of the “what” pathway
Fusiform Face Area (FFA): Responds to faces more than other objects.
Parahippocampal Place Area (PPA): Responds preferentially to places, such as pictures of houses or
landscapes.
Extrastriate Body Area (EBA): Specifically involved in the perception of body parts.
Middle Temporal area (MT): Specialised for motion processing.
Lesion in neuropsychology:
– 1. (n) A region of damaged brain
– 2. (v) To destroy a section of the brain
Agnosias: failure to recognize objects in spite of the ability to see them

CHAPTER 5:
Colour: Not a physical property but rather a psychophysical property
Detection: Wavelengths of light must be detected in the first place.
Discrimination: We must be able to tell the difference between one wavelength (or mixture of
wavelengths) and another.
Appearance: We want to assign perceived colours to lights and surfaces in the world and have those
perceived colours be stable over time, regardless of different lighting conditions.
Scotopic: Dim light levels at or below the level of bright moonlight
Photopic: Light intensities bright enough to stimulate cone receptors and bright enough to “saturate”
the rod receptors
Trichromacy (The Young-Helmholtz theory): The perceived colour of any light is defined in our visual
system by the relationships between a set of three numbers, the outputs of three receptor types now
known to be the three cones.
Implication: Our perception of white light is a mental event, we must mix these different lights to create
white
Additive colour mixture: A mixture of lights
Metamers: Different mixtures of wavelengths that look identical.
Subtractive colour mixture: A mixture of pigments.
Pigments: Substances that absorb light at some wave lengths and reflect light at others.
Reflectance Curve: Proportion of light at different wavelengths that is reflected from a pigment
Pointillism: style of painting developed by the neo-impressionist Georges Seurat in which additive colour
mixtures are achieved by placing dots of different colours in close proximity to each other, rather than
the subtractive mixtures that are obtained when pigments are mixed together in the same location.
Dithering: A form of colour quantization, resulting in a reduction of the number of colours needed.
Dithering makes use of additive colour mixing, both in print and on displays (similar to pointillism).
Colour space: The three-dimensional space, established because colour perception is based on the
outputs of three cone types, that describes the set of all colours.
LMS: Responses of the three types of cones.
RGB: Outputs of long (red), medium (green), and short (blue) wavelength lights (monitors, projectors)
HSB colour space: Defined by hue, saturation, and brightness – used in graphics design
hue: The chromatic (colour) aspect of light
saturation: The chromatic strength of a hue
brightness: The distance from black in colour space
RGB space: a cube, with white and black as diagonally opposite corners.
HSB space: two cones, connected at their base, with white at the top tip and black at the bottom tip.
Cone-opponent cell (or colour-opponent cell): Neuron whose output is based on a difference between
sets of cones
Opponent colour theory: The theory that perception of colour is based on the output of three
mechanisms, each of them based on an opponency between two colours:
red – green, blue – yellow, black – white
Afterimage: A visual image seen after the stimulus has been removed
Negative afterimage: An afterimage whose polarity is the opposite of the original stimulus.
Deuteranopia: absence of M-cones
Protanopia: absence of L-cones
Tritanopia: absence of S-cones
Colour-anomalous: Have two types of cones (typically L- and M-cones) which are so similar that they
can’t make discriminations based on them
Cone monochromat: Have only one cone type; truly colour-blind
Rod monochromat: Have no cones of any type; truly colour-blind and badly visually impaired in bright
light
Achromatopsia: An inability to perceive colours that is due to damage to the central nervous system
Cultural relativism: In sensation and perception, the idea that basic perceptual experiences (e.g., colour
perception) may be determined in part by the cultural environment.
Colour contrast: A colour perception effect in which the colour of one region induces the opponent
colour in a neighbouring region.
Colour assimilation: Effect in which two colours bleed into each other, each taking on some of the
chromatic quality of the other
Illuminant: The light that illuminates a surface
Colour constancy: The tendency of a surface to appear
the same colour under a fairly wide range of illuminants

CHAPTER 6:
Monocular depth cue: A depth cue that is available even when the world is viewed with one eye alone:
● Nonmetrical: information about relative depth order but not depth magnitude (e.g., his nose is
in front of his face)
❖ Occlusion: A cue to relative depth order when, for example, one object obstructs the
view of part of another object.
❖ Texture Gradient: A depth cue based on the geometric fact that items of the same size
form smaller images when they are farther away.
❖ Aerial perspective: depth from scattering of light by the atmosphere.
● Relative metrical: quantitative information about relative depth (e.g., object A is twice as far
aways as object B)
❖ Relative Size: A comparison of size between items without knowing the absolute size of
either one.
❖ Relative Height: Objects at different distances from the viewer on the ground plane will
form images at different heights in the retinal image.
❖ Motion parallax: Objects moving at constant speed across the retina will appear to move
a greater amount if they are closer in depth.
● Absolute metrical: quantitative information about absolute distance (e.g., the dog is 10 metres
away from me 😔)
❖ Familiar size: depth cue based on knowledge of the typical size of objects.
Binocular depth cue: A depth cue that relies on information from both eyes.
Accidental Viewpoints: Accidental co-terminations can lead to illusory depth perception due to
erroneous assumptions of contiguity
Ames Room: A distorted room to generate optical distance and size illusions.
Pictorial depth cue: A cue to distance or depth used by artists to depict three-dimensional depth in two-
dimensional pictures.
Linear perspective: A depth cue based on the fact that lines that are parallel in the three-dimensional
world will appear to converge in a two-dimensional image.
Vanishing point: The apparent point at which parallel lines receding in depth converge
Anamorphosis (or anamorphic projection): Use of the rules of linear perspective to create a
two-dimensional image so distorted that it looks correct only when viewed from a special angle or with a
mirror that counters the distortion.
Binocular summation: An advantage in detecting a stimulus that is afforded by having two eyes rather
than just one.
Binocular disparity: The differences between the two retinal images of the same scene.
Stereopsis: "popping out in depth"
Accommodation: Lens changes its focus
Convergence: Ability to turn two eyes inward
Divergence: Ability to turn two eyes outward
efferent copy: A form of sensory input from muscles
Corresponding retinal points: Points on the retina of each eye where monocular retinal images of a
single object appear are the same distance from the fovea in each eye.
​Vieth–Müller circle: The theoretical location of objects whose images fall on geometrically
corresponding points in the two retinas in the horizontal plane. Circle that intersects the objects and the
lenses of both eyes. Based on the geometry of location of eyes.
Horopter: The empirical location of objects whose images lie on the corresponding points. The surface of
zero disparity – surface in 3d space. Based on actual tests of disparity (i.e., theory doesn't match reality).
Crossed disparity: Disparity created by objects in front of the plane of the horopter.
Images in front of the horopter are displaced to the left in the right eye and to the right in the left eye.
Uncrossed disparity: Disparity created by objects behind the plane of the horopter.
Images behind the horopter are displaced to the right in the right eye and to the left in the left eye.
Stereoscope: A device for presenting one image to one eye and another image to the other eye, creating
a single, three-dimensional design.
Free fusion: The technique of converging (crossing) or diverging the eyes in order to view a stereogram
without a stereoscope.
Trick: place a pencil between the image and you and move back and forth until the blurred images in the
back overlap. Then switch your accommodation to the image in the back and it will come into focus.
Random dot stereogram (RDS): A stereogram made of a large number of randomly placed dots.
Cyclopean: stimuli defined by binocular disparity alone
Correspondence problem: Figuring out which bit of the image in the left eye should be matched with
which bit in the right eye.
Blurring the image: Leaving only the low-spatial frequency information (reduces the number of blobs to
match).
Uniqueness constraint: A feature in the world will be represented exactly once in each retinal image.
Continuity constraint: Except at the edges of objects, neighbouring points in the world lie at similar
distances from the viewer.
Absolute disparity: A difference in the actual retinal coordinates in the left and right eyes of the image of
a feature in the visual scene (used for control of convergence)
Relative disparity: The difference in absolute disparities of two elements in the visual scene
Binocular Rivalry: The competition between the two eyes for control of visual perception, which is
evident when completely different stimuli are presented to the two eyes.
Bayesian approach: A statistical model based on Thomas Bayes’ insight that prior knowledge could
influence your estimates of the probability of a current event.
Ideal observer: A theoretical observer with complete access to the best available information and the
ability to combine different sources of information in the optimal manner.
– It can be useful to compare human performance to that of an ideal observer.
Stereoacuity: A measure of the smallest binocular disparity that can generate a sensation of depth.
Dichoptic: Referring to the presentation of two stimuli, one to each eye. Different from binocular
presentation, which could involve both eyes looking at a single stimulus.
Critical period: Period of time when organism is particularly susceptible to developmental change
Strabismus: Misalignment of the two eyes - a single object is imaged on the fovea of one eye, non foveal
area of the other (turned) eye. Strabismus is treated by patching the dominant eye.
Suppression: In vision, the inhibition of an unwanted image.
Esotropia: Strabismus in which one eye deviates inward.
Exotropia: Strabismus in which one eye deviates outward.
CHAPTER 7:
Attention - A large set of selective processes in the brain that can:
- pick one out of many stimuli
- make us more (or less) sensitive to stimulation - select "slices" of time or space
- resolve perceptual ambiguity
- exist in every modality
Selective: Processing restricted to a subset of possible stimuli
Sustained: Continuously monitoring some stimulus
Divided: Splitting attention between two different stimuli
External: Attending to stimuli in the world
Internal: Attending to one line of thought over another or selecting one response over another
Overt/Exogenous: Directing a sense organ toward a stimulus, like pointing your eyes or turning your
head
Covert/Endogenous: Attending without giving an outward sign you are doing so
Reaction time: a measure of the time from the onset of a stimulus to a response
Cue: A stimulus that might indicate where (or what) a subsequent stimulus will be: valid vs. invalid vs.
neutral.
Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA): time between the onset of one stimulus and the onset of another
Reaction time benefit of the cue: RT(invalid) – RT(valid)
Spotlight model: attention moves from one point to the next
Visual Search: Looking for a target in a display containing distracting elements
Pop-out or Parallel search: Immediate perception of oddball target, independent of set size
Self-terminating search: Items examined one after another until target is found (target present) or until
all items are checked (target absent)
Feature integration theory: Anne Treisman’s theory of visual attention - limited set of basic features
(colour, orientation, etc.) can be processed in parallel preattentively. Other properties, including the
correct binding of features to objects, require attention.
Preattentive stage: The processing of a stimulus that occurs before selective attention is deployed to
that stimulus.
Binding: Tying multiple features of a stimulus to a unified object, requires attention.
Scene-based guidance: Information in our understanding of scenes that helps us find specific objects in
scenes.
Feature-based attention: attention can enhance the processing of a specific feature which can lead to
different perceptions.
Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP): An experimental procedure in which stimuli appear in a stream
at one location (typically the point of fixation) at a rapid rate (typically about eight per second).
Attentional blink: Difficulty in perceiving and responding to second of two target stimuli amid a RSVP
stream of distracting stimuli.
Balint syndrome: bilateral lesion of parietal lobes
Ensemble statistics: The average and distribution of properties, such as orientation or colour, over a set
of objects or a region in a scene.
Boundary extension: is an error of committing a scene to memory, in which people confidently
remember seeing a surrounding region of a scene that was not visible in the studied view (Intraub &
Richardson, 1989)
Inattentional Blindness: not perceiving things that are in plain sight. Caused by absence of attention to
the unseen object. (Simons & Chabris, 1997)
Change Blindness: failure to notice change between two scenes; perception depends on meaning of
change. (Simons & Levin, 1998)