vocabs from Chap. 6: Perception [David Myer's Psychology book 8th edition]

Chap. 6: Perception

• Selective attention- the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect
• Inattentional blindness- failure to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere
• Visual capture- tendency for vision to dominate other senses
• Gestalt- an organized whole, Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of info. into meaningful wholes
• Figure-ground- organization of the visual fiend into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground)
• Grouping- the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups
• Depth perception- ability to see objects in 3-D although the images that strike the retina are 2-D, allows us to judge distance
• Visual cliff- a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals
• Binocular cues- depth cues, such as retinal disparity & convergence, that depend on the use of two eyes
• Retinal disparity- a binocular cue for perceiving depth: by comparing images from the two eyeballs, the brain computes distance- the greater disparity (difference) b/t the two images, the closer the objects
• Convergence- binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object. Greater the inward strain, closer the object
• Monocular cues- depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone
• Phi phenomenon- an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession
• Perceptual constancy- perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, & size) even as illumination and retinal images change
• Perceptual adaptation- in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field
• Perceptual set- a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another
• Human factors psychology- branch of psychology that explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be made safe and easy to use
• Extrasensory perception (ESP)- controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input, said to include telepathy, clairvoyance, & precognition
• Parapsychology- study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis