Nativist TheoryLO: To understand the Nativist Theory

of PerceptionTo use it to evaluate constructivist

theory

What happened in the Visual Cliff experiment?

What does this suggest?

Think

• You are on a football or rugby pitch and you just have to look to know where the players and the ball are immediately just by using your eyes.

Think

• You are at the back of a concert arena and you know that you are at the back instantly without looking at a seating plan.

Think

• You are looking at a catalogue and see 13 different phones but just by looking you instantly know what it is that your looking at even though they are different sizes and colours.

The nativist theory says that perception is the result of bottom-up processing. This means that that perception is immediate or direct and it is data-driven. Bottom-up processing begins with independent information from the environment.This information is then interpreted into a form that the brain can understand.

Nativist Theory

Stimuli People perceive the same People perceive differently

The time on a clock

How many people in a football crowd

The colour of a car

The shape of a window

How generous a portion of chips is

How many billboards there are along a pavement

How high a mountain is

How long a garden is

Whether someone is naked or not

The speed of a car overtaking you

Stimuli People perceive the same People perceive differently

The time on a clock

How many people in a football crowd

The colour of a car

The shape of a window

How generous a portion of chips is

How many billboards there are along a pavement

How high a mountain is

How long a garden is

Whether someone is naked or not

The speed of a car overtaking you

Stimuli People perceive the same People perceive differently

The time on a clock

How many people in a football crowd

The colour of a car

The shape of a window

How generous a portion of chips is

How many billboards there are along a pavement

How high a mountain is

How long a garden is

Whether someone is naked or not

The speed of a car overtaking you

Stimuli People perceive the same People perceive differently

The time on a clock

How many people in a football crowd

The colour of a car

The shape of a window

How generous a portion of chips is

How many billboards there are along a pavement

How high a mountain is

How long a garden is

Whether someone is naked or not

The speed of a car overtaking you

Top Down or Bottom Up?

• Constructivist Theory is a Top Down theory• Nativist Theory is a Bottom Up theory

• If you think a statement agrees with constructivist theory put your hands on your head

• If you think a statement agrees with nativist theory put your hands on your bottom

Top or Bottom?

We perceive the world by using the information in the

environment

Top or Bottom?

Brain uses past experience to sort out

what we perceive

Top or Bottom?

Perception is immediate

Top or Bottom?

We have evolved to see the world in the

same way

Top or Bottom?

What is already in your mind affects what you

see here and now

Top or Bottom?

We tend not to disagree about colour shape,

position, distance, speed etc.

Top or Bottom?

Cultural, memory and expectations are used to process perception

Top or Bottom?

Our brains perceptual set determines how we

perceive images

Top or Bottom?

We tend to perceive a situation on the basis of what we expect to

see

Learning Objective

To understand the Nativist Theory of Perception

• To use it to evaluate constructivist theory

The nativist theory of perception disagrees with the constructivist perception of theory because it says…

This is different from the constructivist theory in that…