Bottom Up Processing
The human mind primarily functions by interpreting outside stimulus into comprehensible information. Such a simple fact is very relevant to Psychology and raises the question of just how much our mind influences our senses and whether it can outright lie to us inadvertently. We are all familiar with images which change or shift upon closer inspection such as the notorious rabbit/duck image or the necker cube. These images challenge the reliability of our senses, through this essay I intend to examine whether what we perceive is a direct result of our sensory organs or if we are influenced by bias and prior experience. I will examine contradicting theories on the subject such as Gregories ‘Top-Down Processing’ versus Gibsons ‘Bottom up processing’ …show more content…
Gregory’s now famous ‘Hollow Mask’ experiment is a prime example of an experiment supposedly providing evidence for top-down processing. This experiment showed that when presented with the concave of a face mask a person perceives a normal convex face. The flaw of this experiment is that the mask has to be positioned very carefully and factors such as lighting could potentially have an effect. That is to say this illusion only truly exists under man made conditions. However Gregory takes this as proof that unlikely objects tend to be mistaken for likely objects (Gordon, 2004). A similar task is the ‘Necker Cube’ a cube which can be perceived to be two different orientations depending on where is focused upon, this faces the same limitations as the previous task i.e. an unnatural object with little real world …show more content…
His theories surrounding the ‘blind’ chimpanzees in particular show us just how much we must learn to use our eyes and no amount of alteration from our brain can supplement an inability to perceive correctly. Gibson dismissed much of Gregory’s work on the basis that it manipulated the fallibility of our eyes in relation to light rays and did not prove any influence from the brain. Even this aside the question remains of bias which is shown in Bartlett’s naval officer experiment wherein participants saw what they wanted to see and had their perception influenced by prior
The Significance Of Internal Conflicts In Richard Wagamese's Him Standing
748 Words | 3 PagesSensory images impact the understanding of events by describing how come things make them feel physically, feelings that the reader can relate to. One example is at the end of Lucas’s dream, he feels “icy hands” push him so deep into a pool where he could no longer see anything from the surface and had no air, making his lungs want to “explode” (Wagamese 29). If the readers were ever to hold their breath for a long time, they too could experience a feeling like what Lucas describes. Reoccurring images enrich the work and hint at its meaning by giving the reader more details about it every time to build the mental image of the carving and explaining the dreams that gave the images meaning (Wagamese
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1151 Words | 5 PagesThe squirrel monkeys, along with all primates, have what is called binocular stereoscopic vision. This provides depth perception which is very important in a three dimensional world and for moving quickly and safely through it. This ability to process information quickly shows that the Squirrel Monkey is not just a fun-loving
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486 Words | 2 PagesIt is true that we perceive different aspects
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In Defense Of J. Valberg's The Puzzle Of Experience
1185 Words | 5 PagesIn The Puzzle of Experience, J. J. Valberg argues that, concerning the content of our visual experience, there is contention between the answer derived from reasoning and that found when 'open to experience '. The former leads to the conviction that a physical object can never be “the object of experience,” while with the latter “all we find is the world” (18). After first clarifying what is meant by 'object of experience ', the 'problematic reasoning ' will then be detailed. Afterwards, it will be explained how being 'open to experience ' opposes the reasoning, as well as why the resulting “puzzle” cannot be easily resolved. Lastly, a defence of Valberg 's argument will be offered on the grounds that it relevantly captures how we understand our visual
Perception In Brave New World And Grendel, By John Gardner
1327 Words | 6 PagesOften, the way we perceive something is altered or controlled by someone/something. Like mentioned earlier, we have our more ordinary influences, like social norms/expectations. But in many cases our perception is tailored. In Brave New World, the Government had complete control over the society's perception. The Government did this by only allowing people to see what they wanted them to see, and not really supporting personal perception.
How The Chimpanzees Revealed In Next Of Kin
850 Words | 4 PagesGrowing up Rodger Fouts didn’t know any other chimpanzee than Curious George. When Fouts entered graduate school he meat a new chimpanzee, Washoe. Fouts was pursuing a life in psychology working with children. He was taking an animals psychology class, and he was taught that animals are mindless creatures; he was soon proven wrong when he meet Washoe. Fouts excepted a graduate assistant
Richard Robbin Analysis
611 Words | 3 PagesUpon reading the assigned section, I found Richard Robbin’s views on human behavior to be incredibly enlightening. His discussion of human perception drove me into a deeper state of critical thought than I’ve experienced from an assigned reading. Due to the extreme variation in culture among groups of people, our perceptions of life will vary from person to person. Most humans share a common desire for necessities such as a source of food, water, and a permanent structure to occupy. Besides the basic requirements for survival and reproduction, many cultures view the world in vastly different ways.
Mental Rotation Experiment Essay
1939 Words | 8 PagesIn Shepard and Metzler’s experiment the visual stimuli used were assemblages of cubes. Whereas this experiment uses black figures. The difference in visual stimuli may have affected the participant’s processing of the figure. The cubes could be potentially easier to mentally rotate one figure to see whether it could be mapped onto the other, since the cubes could be counted. Whereas, the black figures used in this experiment are more ambiguous in
Darwin And Darwin's Theory Of Evolution On Psychology And Society
1292 Words | 6 PagesPsy20150 Essay. Name: Clodagh Finnerty Student Number: 13362386 ‘It has been argued that two events led to the development of the modern discipline of Psychology: the foundation of Wilhelm Wundt’s Institute of Experimental Psychology, and the introduction of a new theory of evolution, described in Darwin’s Origin of Species. Critically assess the impact of these events on Psychology and society.’
Essay On Facial Recognition
1075 Words | 5 PagesTop-down processing is also influenced by our experience and is a faster way of recognizing objects compared to bottom-up processing. Another unique characteristic of facial recognition is that it is processed holistically. This was proven by the fact that when a face is inverted it negatively affects our ability to effectively recognize the face (p.122). For us to be able to recognize a face we must be able to see it in its original and whole pattern, which would be an upright position.
Symbolic Blindness In Raymond Carver's Cathedral
520 Words | 3 PagesSymbolic Blindness Sometimes insecurities cause people to judge others or criticize based on assumptions and not see things as they truly are. In the short story “Cathedral” the author Raymond Carver describes a narrator that is sarcastic and critical of his wife’s blind friend that is coming for a visit. Putting yourself in another person’s shoes opens up a whole new way of looking at things.
On Becoming An Individual In An Age Of Distraction
1814 Words | 8 PagesIn a time where technology is advancing beyond what we, as people, could ever imagine. We are at a point, where the hoverboards and flying cars from Back to the Future 2, are within our grasp. With technology advancing at a rate that is faster than almost any car can go, does that leave us lagging behind? Technology has become one of the biggest factors in defining what people will become and that is an advanced society that is not able to do the most basic things. What is meant by basic are things like listening, paying attention and other things.
Strengths And Weaknesses Of Perception Essay
812 Words | 4 PagesBut can our senses trick us and affect what we know of the world? How can we know that the reality we know is simply a figment of our imagination? Perception can be divided into two parts: the sensation, which is what is provided by the world (the stimulus to the senses) and the interpretation, which is when our mind turns the sensation into information for us. Perception lets us interact with the world that surrounds us. With perception, it is much more easy way to know something.
William James's Theory Of Perception
1689 Words | 7 PagesThis essay will discuss the statement by William James, “-whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses but another part (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our head.” (James, 1890). This excerpt relates to the topic of perception, which can be defined as the acquisition and processing of sensory information to see, hear, taste, or feel objects, whilst guiding an organism’s actions with respect to those objects (Sekuler & Blake, 2002). Every theory of perception begins with the question of what features of the surrounding environment can be apprehended through direct pickup (Runeson et al. 2000). Is it only vague elemental cues that are available, and development and expansion through cognitive processes is required
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