PSYCH12X

VISUAL
PERCEPTION
From Sensation to Representation

Prepared by:
Lucky Nine R. Perez, MA
Lesson Objectives
At the end of this lecture, you are expected to:

1. To understand the concept of visual perception

and its processes from sensation to perception;
2. To identify the approaches to perception;
3. To understand the concept, deficits and
processes of perception.
4. To appreciate the process of perception.
5. To develop insights towards this lecture.
Chapter questions
Here are some of the questions we will explore in this chapter:

1. How can we perceive an object like a chair as

having a stable form, given that the image of
the chair on our retina changes as we look at
it from different directions?
2. What are two fundamental approaches to
explaining perception?
3. What happens when people with normal
visual sensations cannot perceive visual
stimuli?
 We do not perceive the
world exactly as our eyes
see it.
The brain processes the
visual stimuli, giving the
stimuli meaning and
interpreting them.
JAMES GIBSON’S
ECOLOGICAL PERCEPTION

James Gibson (1966, 1979) provided a

useful framework for studying perception.

He introduced the concepts of distal

(external) object, informational medium,
proximal stimulation, and perceptual
object.
JAMES GIBSON’S
ECOLOGICAL PERCEPTION

• The distal (far) object is the object in the

external world (e.g., a falling tree).
• The event of the tree falling creates a pattern
on an informational medium. The
informational medium could be sound
waves, as in the sound of the falling tree.
• The informational medium might also
be reflected light, chemical molecules, or
tactile information coming from the
environment.
• Proximal (near) stimulation (i.e., the cells in
your retina absorb the light waves).
• Perceptual object (i.e., what you see) is
created in you that reflects the properties of
the external world.
JAMES GIBSON’S
ECOLOGICAL
PERCEPTION
 THOUGHT BUBBLE
So, if a tree falls in the
forest and no one is
around to hear it, does it
make a sound?
 Some Basic Concepts of
Perception
• Psychologist Wolfgang Metzger introduced
the concept of the ganzfeld effect in 1930.
• The word “Ganzfeld” is German and means
“complete field.”
• It is a phenomenon of perception caused by
exposure to an unstructured, uniform
stimulation field.
• The ganzfeld effect happens when your
brain is starved of visual stimulation and
fills in the blanks on its own. This changes
Wolfgang Metzger (1899-1979)
was a central figure in the
your perception and causes unusual visual
Gestalt movement within and auditory patterns. It can even lead to
psychology in Germany
hallucinations.
 “
The best way I could
describe it is... Imagine
your darkest fears and
deepest insecurities are
playing like a movie in
your mind, over and over
and over again...

(14) I Lived in Darkness For 7 Days, Here's What I Learned - YouTube

‘Mystical’ Psychedelic Compound
Found in Normal Brains
(michiganmedicine.org)
Approaches to
Perception:
How Do We
Make Sense of • Bottom-up theories describe approaches
What We See? where perception starts with the stimuli whose
appearance you take in through your eye. (Data-
There are different views on driven)
how we perceive the world. • Top-down theories describe as a perception
These views can be
summarized as bottom-up that is driven by high-level cognitive processes,
theories and top-down existing knowledge, and the prior expectations
theories. that influence perception. (Conceptual Data)
Approaches to
Perception:
How Do We
Make Sense of
What We See?
1.Direct perception
2.Template theories
BOTTOM-UP 3.Feature matching theories
THEORIES 4.Recognition-by-components
The four main bottom-up
theory
theories of form and pattern
perception are:
 BOTTOM-UP THEORIES

DIRECT PERCEPTION According to Gibson’s theory of direct

perception, the information in our
sensory receptors, including the
sensory context, is all we need to
perceive anything.

we do not need higher cognitive

processes or anything else to mediate
between our sensory experiences and
our perceptions. Existing beliefs or
higher-level inferential thought
processes are not necessary for
When you read these words, you probably have no difficulty perception.
differentiating the A from
the H. Look more closely at each of these two letters. What features As the environment supplies us with
differentiate them? all the information we need for
How do you know the letter A when you see it? Easy to ask, hard to perception, this view is sometimes also
answer. Of course, it’s an A because it looks like an A. What makes it called ecological perception.
look like an A, though, instead of like an H?
BOTTOM-UP THEORIES

TEMPLATE THEORIES
Templates are highly detailed models
for patterns we potentially might
recognize. We recognize a pattern by
comparing it with our set of templates.

Template theories suggest that we have

stored in our minds myriad sets of
templates.

In each of the aforementioned

instances, the goal of finding one
perfect match and disregarding
imperfect matches suits the task.
BOTTOM-UP THEORIES

TEMPLATE THEORIES
Why Computers Have Trouble Reading
Handwriting. Think about how easy it is for
you to perceive and understand someone’s
handwriting. In handwriting, every- body’s
numbers and letters look a bit different.
You can still distinguish them without any
problems (at least in most cases).

A particular barcode will always look exactly the

same way, making it easy for computers to read.
Letters, to the contrary, can look very differently
although they depict the same letter. Template
matching will distinguish between different bar
codes but will not recognize that different versions
of the letter A written in different scripts are indeed
both As.
 BOTTOM-UP THEORIES

FEATURE-MATCHING
According to Oliver Selfridge’s feature-
matching model, we recognize patterns
by matching observed features to
features already stored in memory.
We recognize the patterns for which we
have found the greatest number of
matches.
Imagine your eyes are like detectives, and they look
at things very closely. Feature matching in
perception is when your eyes try to find special
things, like the colors, shapes, and sizes of objects.

Your brain looks at all these features and tries to

figure out what the thing is. It's like a puzzle, and
when your brain finds all the right pieces (features),
it knows what you're looking at!
BOTTOM-UP THEORIES

FEATURE-MATCHING
The Pandemonium Model. One
such feature-matching model has
been called Pandemonium
(“pandemonium” refers to a very
noisy, chaotic place and hell). In it,
metaphorical “demons” with
specific duties receive and analyze
the features of a stimulus
(Selfridge, 1959).
BOTTOM-UP THEORIES

FEATURE-MATCHING
imagine your brain is like a big party with lots of
little creatures. Each creature has a special job, like
looking at different parts of things.

The Pandemonium Model in perception is like

these little creatures having a meeting. In the
meeting, they all shout and make noise to tell your
brain what they see. They say things like, "I see a
straight line!" or "I see a round shape!"

Then, there's a leader in your brain who listens to

all the shouting and figures out what you're
looking at. The leader puts together all the
information from the little creatures and tells you,
"Hey, you're looking at a bicycle!”

So, the Pandemonium Model is like a noisy

meeting in your brain where tiny creatures help
you see and understand things by shouting about
the different parts they see.
BOTTOM-UP THEORIES

FEATURE-MATCHING
Recognition-by-Components
Theory. The recognition by-
components theory explains our
ability to perceive 3-D objects with
the help of simple geometric shapes.

According to Biederman’s recognition-by-

components (RBC) theory, we quickly
recognize objects by observing the edges of
them and then decomposing the objects into
geons (for geometrical ions).
BOTTOM-UP THEORIES

FEATURE-MATCHING
Recognition-by-Components Theory.
 1. In constructive perception, the perceiver builds
Approaches to (constructs) a cognitive understanding (perception) of
Perception: a stimulus.
How Do We 2. The concepts of the perceiver and his or her cognitive
Make Sense of processes influence what he or she sees.
What We See?
3. The perceiver uses sensory information as the
foundation for the structure but also uses other sources
TOP-DOWN of information to build the perception.

THEORIES 4. This viewpoint also is known as intelligent perception

because it states that higher-order thinking plays an
important role in perception. It also emphasizes the
role of learning in perception.

5. An interesting feature of the theory of constructive

perception is that it links human intelligence even to
basic processes of perception.
Approaches to
Perception:
How Do We According to constructivists, during perception
Make Sense of we quickly form and test various hypotheses
What We See? regarding percepts. The percepts are based on
three things:

TOP-DOWN • what we sense (the sensory data),

THEORIES • what we know (knowledge stored in
memory), and
• what we can infer (using high-level cognitive
processes).
Approaches to
Perception:
How Do We
Make Sense of
What We See?
1.Configural superiority effect
TOP-DOWN 2.Object superiority effect
THEORIES 3.The word superiority effect
 TOP-DOWN THEORIES

CONFIGURAL-SUPERIORITY EFFECT
presenting a stimulus
within an organized
context relative to its
presentation in a
disarranged one
results in better
performance.

Objects presented in certain configurations are easier to recognize

than the objects presented in isolation, even if the objects in the
configurations are more complex than those in isolation.

How Configural Is the Configural Superiority Effect? A Neuroimaging Investigation of Emergent Features in Visual Cortex - PMC (nih.gov)
TOP-DOWN THEORIES

CONFIGURAL-SUPERIORITY EFFECT
 TOP-DOWN THEORIES

OBJECT-SUPERIORITY EFFECT
If the picture is all mixed up
and doesn't look like anything
specific, it's harder for your
brain to figure out what's in it.
So, the object-superiority effect
is like your brain being a
detective and being good at
spotting and understanding the
separate things in a picture
when they're clear and not all
jumbled up.

Object-inferiority effects in visual search: the only upward arc is

detected faster when in a meaningless configuration than when in
a face configuration
Twos in human visual perception (sciencedirectassets.com)
 TOP-DOWN THEORIES

WORD-SUPERIORITY EFFECT
When you look at letters
one by one, it can be a
1. TAIL little tricky to figure out
2. BAIT what they mean. But if you
3. BAIL put those letters together
4. TAB to make a word, your
5. BAT brain gets really happy
6. AIL because it's much easier
for your brain to
understand.
Indicates that when people are presented with strings of letters, it
is easier for them to identify a single letter if the string makes
sense and forms a word instead of being just a nonsense sequel of
letters.
Instead of viewing these theoretical
approaches as incompatible, we
may gain deeper insight into
perception by considering the
approaches to be complementary.
TOP DOWN AND BOT TOM-UP
PROCESSING AT WORK
PERCEPTION OF GROUPS
GESTALT LAWS
The Gestalt approach to form perception that was
developed in Germany in the early 20th century is
useful particularly for understanding how we
perceive groups of objects or even parts of objects
to form integral wholes.

It was founded by Kurt Koffka (1886–1941),

Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1968), and Max
Wertheimer (1880–1943) and was based on the
notion that the whole differs from the sum of its
individual parts.
PERCEPTION
OF GROUPS
GESTALT
LAWS
GESTALT LAWS
LAW OF
PRÄGNANZ
We tend to perceive any given visual
array in a way that most simply
organizes the different elements
into a stable and coherent form.

Thus, we do not merely experience a

jumble of unintelligible, disorganized
sensations.
GESTALT LAWS
LAW OF PRÄGNANZ

“
If you cannot explain it simply, you
don’t understand it well enough.
GESTALT LAWS
LAW OF
CLOSURE
Closure (Reification): We prefer
complete shapes, so we
automatically fill in gaps between
elements to perceive a complete
image. That’s how we can see the
whole first.

We tend to perceptually close, or

complete, objects that are not, in
fact, complete.
GESTALT LAWS
LAW OF
COMMON
REGION
We group elements that are in the
same closed region. You include
related objects in the same closed
area to show they stand apart from
other groups.
GESTALT LAWS
LAW OF
FIGURE
GROUND
We dislike uncertainty, so we look
for solid, stable items. Unless an
image is ambiguous—like Rubin’s
Vase, above—we see
its foreground first.
GESTALT LAWS
LAW OF
PROXIMITY
We group closer-together
elements, separating them from
those farther apart.
GESTALT LAWS
LAW OF
PROXIMITY
We group closer-together
elements, separating them from
those farther apart.
PERCEPTUAL
CONSTANCIES
It occurs when our perception of an object
remains the same even when our proximal
sensation of the distal object changes.

The physical characteristics of the external distal

object are probably not changing.

Main constancies: size and shape constancies.

PERCEPTUAL
CONSTANCIES
SIZE
CONSTANCIES
is the perception that an
object maintains the same size
despite changes in the size of
the proximal stimulus.

The size of an image on the

retina depends directly on the
distance of that object from
the eye.
PERCEPTUAL
CONSTANCIES
SHAPE
CONSTANCIES
Like size constancy, shape
constancy relates to the
perception of distances but in
a different way. Shape
constancy is the perception
that an object maintains the
same shape despite changes in
the shape of the proximal
stimulus.
DEPTH PERCEPTION
• The ability to see the world in 3
dimensions and detect distance
• Depth is the distance from a
surface, usually using your own
body as a reference surface when
speaking in terms of depth
perception.

DEPTH CUES
• Monocular depth cues can be represented in just two
dimensions and observed with just one eye.
• Binocular depth cues is based on the receipt of
sensory information in three dimensions from both
eyes.
• Binocular depth cues use the relative positioning of
your eyes.
ILLUSIONS
• Sometimes our perceptions
give false interpretations of
physical reality. An illusion is
an incorrect perception that
occurs when sensation is
distorted. Though most of
our illusions are visual, they
are not limited strictly to the
sense of seeing, The study of
illusion helps us to
understand better how we
process perceptions.
Barriers to • Implicit Personality Theory. A tendency
to have an a piori picture of what other
Accurate people are like.
• Selective Perception. A process by which
Perception of we systematically screen or discredit
Others information we do not wish to hear and
focus instead on more salient
information.
• Stereotyping. A tendency to
• Projections. A tendency to ascribe to
assign attributes to people on
others those negative characteristics or
the basis of their class or
feelings we have about ourselves.
category.
• Temporal Extension. A tendency to
distort or ignore information that is
• Halo Effects. A tendency to allow
either personally threatening or
the traits exhibited by people to
culturally unacceptable.
influence our impressions of
their other traits.
Reference links
• https://www.britannica.com/story/are-there-really-right-brained-and-left-brained-
people#:~:text=The%20idea%20that%20there%20are,brain%20over%20the%20other%20half.
• https://www.tutor2u.net/psychology/topics/emergence-of-cognitive-neuroscience
• https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2012/cognitive-
neuroscience/#:~:text=Cognitive%20neuroscience%20may%20have%20originated,brain%20damage%20suffered%20langu
age%20problems.
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21889823/
• (4) Split Brain Research - Biological Psychology - Biological Psychology [AQA ALevel] – YouTube
 ESSAY

QUESTION TO PONDER
• Why does perception matter? How can we
apply the lectures in perception in life
scenarios? Enumerate atleast 2 practical
examples.
Thank you End of discussion

for QUESTIONS?
listening