HPS203 EXAM A+ Graded
We perceive and recognise objects through: - ✔Form perception (basic shapes and
sizes) and object recognition (identifying objects)
Bottom-up processes - ✔Processes that are directly shaped by the stimulus (data-
driven)
Top-down processes - ✔Processes that are shaped by knowledge (concept-driven)
Visual features - ✔Features of objects that help you recognise the entire objects by only
seeing specific parts of that object. Eg. the arcs of a lollipop
Parallel processing - ✔The ability of the brain to simultaneously process and interpret
incoming stimuli of differing quality
Familiarity - ✔Frequent words are better recognised
Recency - ✔Words just seen are better recognised
Repetition priming - ✔When a word is seen then viewed again a little later, the first
exposure primes the participant for the second exposure
Feature nets - ✔A network of detectors, organised in layers, with each subsequent layer
having more complex, larger scale objects - allows for more efficient memory storage
however at the cost of occasional error
Feature detectors - ✔When we recognise shapes of letters
Bigram detectors - ✔When we recognise familiar letter combinations (CL, CK) in
comparison to unfamiliar ones (CQ, CX) - requires less activation levels
Activation level - ✔how mental arousal is necessary for effective functioning in that we
need a certain level of activation in order to be sufficiently motivated to achieve goals,
do good work and so on.
Response threshold - ✔When an activation level reaches the detector's response
threshold, the detector will fire - it sends its signal to the other detectors to which it's
connected to
McCelland and Rumelhart Model - ✔Rather than believing that the activation of
detectors serve to activate other detectors, it is believed that detectors inhibit one
another, so that activation of one detector can decrease the activation in other detectors
, Excitatory connections - ✔Connections that allow one detector to activate its neighbours
Inhibitory connections - ✔When detectors deactivate its neighbours
Biederman's recognition-by-components theory - ✔According to this theory we are able
to recognise objects by separating them into geons (the object's main component parts)
Geons - ✔Simple components and shapes - cylinders, cones, blocks - are recognised
across different orientations and viewpoints
Facial recognition - ✔Processes used for word recognition are NOT used for recognition
of faces. Facial recognition is distinctive in its strong dependence on orientation or
viewpoint
Prosopagnosia - ✔Inability to recognise features of faces, but has no impact on object
and word recognition
Face aversion effect - ✔It is more difficult to recognise an upside-down face to any other
upside down objects
Helmholtz's unconscious inference - ✔A term to describe an involuntary reflex-like
mechanism which is part of the formation of visual impressions
Dichotic listening - ✔A psychological test commonly used to investigate selective
attention. Participants wear headphones and are given one input in the right ear and
another in the left
Attended channel (Dichotic listening) - ✔The input that participants are instructed to pay
attention to
Shadowing - ✔A task given to participants to make sure they are paying attention -
required to repeat input back word for word - performance usually being close to 100%.
However, close to nothing is heard from the unattended channel
Unattended inputs - ✔Participants are more likely to recognise unattended inputs when
their name is embedded within the channel, as well as any other words with person
significance
Inattentional blindness - ✔failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed
elsewhere
Change blindness - ✔when people fail to detect changes to the visual details of a scene
We perceive and recognise objects through: - ✔Form perception (basic shapes and
sizes) and object recognition (identifying objects)
Bottom-up processes - ✔Processes that are directly shaped by the stimulus (data-
driven)
Top-down processes - ✔Processes that are shaped by knowledge (concept-driven)
Visual features - ✔Features of objects that help you recognise the entire objects by only
seeing specific parts of that object. Eg. the arcs of a lollipop
Parallel processing - ✔The ability of the brain to simultaneously process and interpret
incoming stimuli of differing quality
Familiarity - ✔Frequent words are better recognised
Recency - ✔Words just seen are better recognised
Repetition priming - ✔When a word is seen then viewed again a little later, the first
exposure primes the participant for the second exposure
Feature nets - ✔A network of detectors, organised in layers, with each subsequent layer
having more complex, larger scale objects - allows for more efficient memory storage
however at the cost of occasional error
Feature detectors - ✔When we recognise shapes of letters
Bigram detectors - ✔When we recognise familiar letter combinations (CL, CK) in
comparison to unfamiliar ones (CQ, CX) - requires less activation levels
Activation level - ✔how mental arousal is necessary for effective functioning in that we
need a certain level of activation in order to be sufficiently motivated to achieve goals,
do good work and so on.
Response threshold - ✔When an activation level reaches the detector's response
threshold, the detector will fire - it sends its signal to the other detectors to which it's
connected to
McCelland and Rumelhart Model - ✔Rather than believing that the activation of
detectors serve to activate other detectors, it is believed that detectors inhibit one
another, so that activation of one detector can decrease the activation in other detectors
, Excitatory connections - ✔Connections that allow one detector to activate its neighbours
Inhibitory connections - ✔When detectors deactivate its neighbours
Biederman's recognition-by-components theory - ✔According to this theory we are able
to recognise objects by separating them into geons (the object's main component parts)
Geons - ✔Simple components and shapes - cylinders, cones, blocks - are recognised
across different orientations and viewpoints
Facial recognition - ✔Processes used for word recognition are NOT used for recognition
of faces. Facial recognition is distinctive in its strong dependence on orientation or
viewpoint
Prosopagnosia - ✔Inability to recognise features of faces, but has no impact on object
and word recognition
Face aversion effect - ✔It is more difficult to recognise an upside-down face to any other
upside down objects
Helmholtz's unconscious inference - ✔A term to describe an involuntary reflex-like
mechanism which is part of the formation of visual impressions
Dichotic listening - ✔A psychological test commonly used to investigate selective
attention. Participants wear headphones and are given one input in the right ear and
another in the left
Attended channel (Dichotic listening) - ✔The input that participants are instructed to pay
attention to
Shadowing - ✔A task given to participants to make sure they are paying attention -
required to repeat input back word for word - performance usually being close to 100%.
However, close to nothing is heard from the unattended channel
Unattended inputs - ✔Participants are more likely to recognise unattended inputs when
their name is embedded within the channel, as well as any other words with person
significance
Inattentional blindness - ✔failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed
elsewhere
Change blindness - ✔when people fail to detect changes to the visual details of a scene
