Transcript Document

PERCEPTION
Tristram Jones PhD
Kaplan University
Intro to Psych, SS124, 26AU
Sensation vs. Perception!
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SENSATION: NOT simple awareness!? Simple
sensation! Remember good old Helmholtz and his
frogs?
PERCEPTION may coincide with AWARENESS!
(Ouch, my hand is burning up!) Or lag slightly!
TRANSDUCTION puts sensation and awareness
together in the BRAIN with interpretation as
neural signals!
How Unique is Transduction?
How does synethesia work? “It will shed new
light” means we don’t know!
 Synesthetes prove that transduction can be a
dramatically individual process!
 Wundt failed utterly to measure perceptual
experience—how can it be done?
 PSYCHOPHYSICS is the brainchild of Gustav
Fechner (methods that measure the strength of a
stimuli and the sensitivity of subjects to stimuli).
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Transduction can synthesize senses in
other ways we can all understand,
(even though we don’t!)
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The olfactory sense, of the 5 senses, is the most
immediately mnemonic—and nobody really knows why!
It also lends itself most naturally to creating synethesia,
but not in such a fun way!
And then there’s David Hume!
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18th Century Scottish Philosopher Has Never
been Refuted (unless you count Samuel
Johnson!)
The mystery of perceptual constancy!
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Does your brain have “spell check”? We know that
specific neurons react to specific shapes, angles,
edges, and so on. Other parts of the brain detect
motion. But you can read because of perceptual
constancy! Unlike your computer, you can match an
infinite number of images and variations. Your
computer can spell monkey, and maybe Monkees, but
not muennkeiee! (“no suggestions”!)
Single neurons are why you can unravel
identities even when changes are made!
WHO ARE THESE MEN???
YOUR BRAIN sees GESTALTS!
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Gestalt Psychology’s theory of EMERGENCE seems to
contradict structuralism—Wundt hated it!
FUNCTIONALISM
STRUCTURALISM
A contemporary psychology of perception is
Objects Relations Theory
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Objects are initially comprehended in the infant mind
by their functions and are termed "part objects."
Internal objects are formed by the patterns emerging in
one's repeated subjective experience of the care taking
environment. (Phantasies)
Splitting occurs distinguishing good and bad objects.
Schizophrenia=failure to integrate these split good and
bad functions through resolved phantasy
Subliminal sensory power???
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Advertising relied initially on two forms of
subliminal suggestion—flash messages and
encrypted ones, called “embeds”!