Cog Sci C100 Midterm 1 | Questions and Answers
Verified 100% Correct
Recognition accuracy for faces and houses: parts vs. whole - ANSWER
•Participants were shown series of faces with person's name and series of houses
with owner's name
•Later on recognition test, they showed greater recall of
- Parts of Houses
-Whole Faces
People tend to perceive women more in parts
Prosopagnosia - ANSWER failure to recognize particular people by the sight of
their faces
-After stroke, a sheep rancher could not recognize people but could recognize
sheep
Importance of Eyes - ANSWER 70-90% of famous portrait painting sampled from
the last 5 centuries have an eye at or within 5% of the painting's exact centerline
Limitations of object perception - ANSWER What we perceive, the way we
perceive, is not always what would be predicted by these models
Our Concepts, expectations, and beliefs also play a much bigger role in perception
than we usually realize
Perception engages in both these type of processing - ANSWER top-down and
bottom-up processing
Bottom-Up processing - ANSWER analysis of information coming from stimuli
through sensory receptors
- Object perception as combination of stimulus information from sensory receptors
,- Emphasizes the importance of information coming from the outside world
top-down processing - ANSWER information processing guided by higher-level
processes, such as our beliefs, expectations, and memories
- Our knowledge, beliefs about the world inform our perceptions
- Emphasizes the importance of information coming from our minds
Top-Down Processing in Object Recognition - ANSWER Our perception of an
object may change though image on retina does not change.
-Reversible Figures (Necker Cube, Old/Young woman)
Effect of expectations on perception - ANSWER - Perceptual set brain teasers
- Context Effects (e.g presidential Illusions)
Effects of Prior Experience on Perception - ANSWER Children who have been
physically abused are significantly more likely to misperceive a fearful face as
angry
Rorscharch and Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) - ANSWER a type of
projective test that involves describing ambiguous scenes
Rosenhan Study - ANSWER study in which healthy individuals were admitted
into mental hospitals after saying they were hearing voices. Once in, they acted
normally and still were not labeled as impostors.
self-fulfilling prophecies - ANSWER People generally think that it is our
experiences and perceptions that create our beliefs, but often, it is actually our
beliefs that create our experiences and perceptions
The Pygmalion Effect - ANSWER People are influenced by the expectations built
upon them
study found that students who were (randomly) labeled intellectual "spurters"
showed significantly greater gains in IQ and academic performance after 8 months
than controls
,-Follow-up: If teacher believed that girls learn to read faster than boys, they did
Children who were told they were neat and tidy became more neat and tidy than
those who were told they should be neat and tidy-
Follow-up: children who are told that they are good at math showed greater
improvements in math scores than those who were told that they should try to
become good at math
Those who over-idealize romantic partners as having many virtues and few faults
tend to have happier and longer-lasting relationships (Miller, Niehuis, & Huston,
2006)
-Moreover, the partners who are over-idealized tended to develop those traits over
time! (Sandra Murray)
Our beliefs and expectations influence our own behavior - ANSWER Study by
Mark Snyder found that when a man was led to believe that a woman found him
attractive, she was more likely to act as if she did
perceptual constancy - ANSWER perceiving objects as unchanging (having
consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images
change
•Many visual illusions result from the overuse of strategies employed to achieve
perceptual constancy
shape constancy - ANSWER we perceive the form of familiar objects as constant
even while our retinal images of them change
• A door casts an increasingly trapezoidal image on our retinas as it opens, yet we
still perceive it as rectangular
Lightness Constancy - ANSWER we perceive an object as having a constant color,
even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.
, Size-distance constancy - ANSWER we perceive an object as the same size when
it is far away as when it is near though the image on the retina is smaller
Muller-Lyerillusion: Is line AB or line BC longer?
The Magical Kingdom of Salt - ANSWER In the Salar de Uyuni of Bolivia, the
world's largest salt flat, with no other objects in sight, the human eye loses its
ability to establish a proper field of depth. The result is some bizarre pictures.
Development of Perception - ANSWER There is a critical period for normal
sensory and perceptual development
Kittens reared in a cylinder with only vertical black and white stripes later had
difficulty perceiving horizontal bars
-Kitten would play with rod only when it was held upright.
Adults who were born blind and later gained vision through newly-developed
surgical interventions (e.g., cataract surgery) usually have some difficulty
recognizing objects - ANSWER -> At age 3, Mike May lost his vision in an
explosion. Decades later, a new cornea restored vision to his right eye.
• Unfortunately, although signals were now reaching his visual cortex, it lacked the
experience to interpret them
-May could not recognize expression, or faces, apart from features such
as hair -Yet he can see an object in motion
Auditory Perception: Effects of Music on Cognition - ANSWER Music has been
found to influence memory, decision making, and other cognitive processes
-> Study conducted in supermarkets found that use of slow background music
increased sales by 39% over use of fast music -shoppers stayed in store longer and
bought more, a lot more
-Particularly effective for purchasing decisions with high affective/low cognitive
involvement, e.g., jewelry, sportswear, and beer
Verified 100% Correct
Recognition accuracy for faces and houses: parts vs. whole - ANSWER
•Participants were shown series of faces with person's name and series of houses
with owner's name
•Later on recognition test, they showed greater recall of
- Parts of Houses
-Whole Faces
People tend to perceive women more in parts
Prosopagnosia - ANSWER failure to recognize particular people by the sight of
their faces
-After stroke, a sheep rancher could not recognize people but could recognize
sheep
Importance of Eyes - ANSWER 70-90% of famous portrait painting sampled from
the last 5 centuries have an eye at or within 5% of the painting's exact centerline
Limitations of object perception - ANSWER What we perceive, the way we
perceive, is not always what would be predicted by these models
Our Concepts, expectations, and beliefs also play a much bigger role in perception
than we usually realize
Perception engages in both these type of processing - ANSWER top-down and
bottom-up processing
Bottom-Up processing - ANSWER analysis of information coming from stimuli
through sensory receptors
- Object perception as combination of stimulus information from sensory receptors
,- Emphasizes the importance of information coming from the outside world
top-down processing - ANSWER information processing guided by higher-level
processes, such as our beliefs, expectations, and memories
- Our knowledge, beliefs about the world inform our perceptions
- Emphasizes the importance of information coming from our minds
Top-Down Processing in Object Recognition - ANSWER Our perception of an
object may change though image on retina does not change.
-Reversible Figures (Necker Cube, Old/Young woman)
Effect of expectations on perception - ANSWER - Perceptual set brain teasers
- Context Effects (e.g presidential Illusions)
Effects of Prior Experience on Perception - ANSWER Children who have been
physically abused are significantly more likely to misperceive a fearful face as
angry
Rorscharch and Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) - ANSWER a type of
projective test that involves describing ambiguous scenes
Rosenhan Study - ANSWER study in which healthy individuals were admitted
into mental hospitals after saying they were hearing voices. Once in, they acted
normally and still were not labeled as impostors.
self-fulfilling prophecies - ANSWER People generally think that it is our
experiences and perceptions that create our beliefs, but often, it is actually our
beliefs that create our experiences and perceptions
The Pygmalion Effect - ANSWER People are influenced by the expectations built
upon them
study found that students who were (randomly) labeled intellectual "spurters"
showed significantly greater gains in IQ and academic performance after 8 months
than controls
,-Follow-up: If teacher believed that girls learn to read faster than boys, they did
Children who were told they were neat and tidy became more neat and tidy than
those who were told they should be neat and tidy-
Follow-up: children who are told that they are good at math showed greater
improvements in math scores than those who were told that they should try to
become good at math
Those who over-idealize romantic partners as having many virtues and few faults
tend to have happier and longer-lasting relationships (Miller, Niehuis, & Huston,
2006)
-Moreover, the partners who are over-idealized tended to develop those traits over
time! (Sandra Murray)
Our beliefs and expectations influence our own behavior - ANSWER Study by
Mark Snyder found that when a man was led to believe that a woman found him
attractive, she was more likely to act as if she did
perceptual constancy - ANSWER perceiving objects as unchanging (having
consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images
change
•Many visual illusions result from the overuse of strategies employed to achieve
perceptual constancy
shape constancy - ANSWER we perceive the form of familiar objects as constant
even while our retinal images of them change
• A door casts an increasingly trapezoidal image on our retinas as it opens, yet we
still perceive it as rectangular
Lightness Constancy - ANSWER we perceive an object as having a constant color,
even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.
, Size-distance constancy - ANSWER we perceive an object as the same size when
it is far away as when it is near though the image on the retina is smaller
Muller-Lyerillusion: Is line AB or line BC longer?
The Magical Kingdom of Salt - ANSWER In the Salar de Uyuni of Bolivia, the
world's largest salt flat, with no other objects in sight, the human eye loses its
ability to establish a proper field of depth. The result is some bizarre pictures.
Development of Perception - ANSWER There is a critical period for normal
sensory and perceptual development
Kittens reared in a cylinder with only vertical black and white stripes later had
difficulty perceiving horizontal bars
-Kitten would play with rod only when it was held upright.
Adults who were born blind and later gained vision through newly-developed
surgical interventions (e.g., cataract surgery) usually have some difficulty
recognizing objects - ANSWER -> At age 3, Mike May lost his vision in an
explosion. Decades later, a new cornea restored vision to his right eye.
• Unfortunately, although signals were now reaching his visual cortex, it lacked the
experience to interpret them
-May could not recognize expression, or faces, apart from features such
as hair -Yet he can see an object in motion
Auditory Perception: Effects of Music on Cognition - ANSWER Music has been
found to influence memory, decision making, and other cognitive processes
-> Study conducted in supermarkets found that use of slow background music
increased sales by 39% over use of fast music -shoppers stayed in store longer and
bought more, a lot more
-Particularly effective for purchasing decisions with high affective/low cognitive
involvement, e.g., jewelry, sportswear, and beer
