Chapter 3-3

how we select, organize, and interpret sensory information. It is an active process.

What are the rules that guide us unconsciously in this task?

Do we really understand how we organize information that is received by our senses?

Illusions trick your brain into seeing something that is not actually present.

Your eye sees something that’s physically there, but your brain interprets it as something different.

Illusions show us truths about how our brains organize information! They reveal the ways we normally organize and interpret our sensations.

1. “Form” Perception: how do we see shapes and content. Look into “Gestalt” principles.

2. Depth Perception: the ability to see objects in 3 dimensions.

Gestalt: a German word for “form” or a “whole”

Gestalt: an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Gestalt theorists followed the basic principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

In viewing the "whole," a cognitive process takes place – the mind makes a leap from comprehending the parts to realizing the whole.

Fundamental Principle: Perception is organized and dictated by the several principles of the perceptual field.

 Perceptual field: the total sensory scene taken in by any one of the senses at any given moment in time.

The brain organizes fragments of sensory data into gestalts or meaningful forms. How does it do this?

a perceptual tendency to separate whole figures from the background.

Figure – the part we pay attention to.

Ground – everything that is not the figure.

They help to define each other.

Vase or two portraits? Circle or a square?

i. Proximity —group nearby figures together.

The Gestalt law of proximity states that "objects or shapes that are close to one another appear to form groups". Even if the shapes, sizes, and objects are radically different, they will appear as a group if they are close together.  

Gestalt theory states that things which share visual characteristics such as shape, size, color, texture, or value will be seen as belonging together in the viewer’s mind.

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This involves the brain's provision of missing details thought to be a part of a potential pattern, or, once closure is achieved, the elimination of details unnecessary to establish a pattern match.

The ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two dimensional; allows us to judge distance.

Partially an innate ability, but experience reinforces and amplifies.

Depth cues that depend on the use of two eyes.◦ Convergence: the rotation of the two eyes in

their sockets to focus on a single object, resulting in greater convergence for closer objects and lesser convergence if objects are distant

◦ Binocular Disparity: The difference in images between the two eyes, which is greater for objects that are close and smaller for distant objects.

Cues for perceiving depth based on one eye only.

Also referred to as “pictorial depth cues.”

i. Relative size-smaller is farther away.

Nearby objects reflect more light than faraway objects.

We assume light comes from above.

Monocular cues for distance aid our sense of distance and size.

Horizontal lines usually appear shorter than vertical lines.