PERCEPTION

A subliminal message is a brief auditory or visual message that is presented below the absolute
threshold, which means that there is less than a 50% chance that the message will be perceived.

Becoming Aware of a Stimulus

Threshold - refers to a point above which a stimulus is perceived and below which it is not
perceived. The threshold determines when we first become aware of a stimulus.
Absolute threshold is the intensity level of a stimulus such that a person will have a 50% chance
of detecting it.

In psychology, perception refers to the process of organizing, interpreting, and making sense of
sensory information received from the environment. It is the way individuals select, process,
and give meaning to the sensory data they encounter through their senses, which include sight,
hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

Threshold - in perception is like a line that separates what we notice from what we don't notice.
Imagine it as a point where our senses or our brain decide, "This is important enough to pay
attention to, and that is not.”
Let's break it down with an example:
Imagine you're in a quiet room, and someone starts playing soft music. At first, you might not
even notice it because the volume is below your threshold for hearing. But as they turn up the
volume, there comes a point where the music becomes loud enough to cross your threshold,
and you start hearing it.

So, the threshold is like a filter that decides what gets your attention and what doesn't. It can be
different for different people and different situations.
The absolute threshold is indeed related to the point at which you notice something, but it's
specifically the minimum level of stimulation that is needed for you to detect a particular
sensation. In other words, it's the weakest stimulus that you can perceive. How percent the
chance you will perceive the stimulus.

The concept of an absolute threshold helps us understand how sensitive our senses are to
different stimuli. It can vary from person to person and from one sense to another (e.g., vision,
hearing, touch). It's like the dimmest light you can see, the quietest sound you can hear, or the
lightest touch you can feel. It's the point at which your perception begins.

A just noticeable difference - or JND, refers to the smallest increase or decrease in the intensity
of a stimulus that a person is able to detect.

JNB - For example, to measure a just noticeable difference in weight, Weber asked people to
compare stimuli of varying intensities and indicate when they could detect a difference between
them. He discovered that if he presented two stimuli with very low intensities, such as a 2-
ounce weight versus a 3-ounce weight, people could easily detect the difference between them.
However, if he presented stimuli with high intensities, such as a 40-pound weight versus a 41-
pound weight, people could no longer detect the difference. For higher-intensity stimuli, such as
heavy weights, a much larger difference in intensity was required for the difference to be
noticed.

How can I be
successful and happy?
Much of your success in being happy and successful depends on your ability to respond
intelligently and adapt appropriately to changes in your environment (NAMHC, 1996).
The first step in responding and adapting involves gathering millions of meaningless sensations
and changing them into useful perceptions. Because your brain changes sensations into
perceptions so quickly, automatically, and with very little awareness, you might assume that
what you see (sense) is what you perceive.

However, the process of changing sensations into perceptions is influenced by whether you are
alert, sleepy, worried, emotional, motivated, or affected by the use of a legal or illegal drug.
For example, drinking alcohol causes perceptions in social situations to be less rational and
more uninhibited, causing people under its influence to act aggressively, make terrible
decisions, create problems, or say really dumb things (R. Goldberg, 2006; Maisto et al., 2008).
As you are about to discover, sensing and perceiving are as different as night and day.
A sensation is our first awareness of some outside stimulus. An
outside stimulus activates sensory receptors, which in turn produce
electrical signals that are transformed by the brain into meaningless
bits of information.

Perception is the experience we have after our brain assembles and

combines thou- sands of individual, meaningless sensations into a
meaningful pattern or image.
However, our perceptions are rarely exact replicas of the original
stimuli. Rather, our perceptions are usually changed, biased, colored, or
distorted by our unique set of experiences. Thus, perceptions are our
personal interpretations of the real world.

One important feature of perceptions is that they are rarely exact copies
of the real world. For example, people who listen to the same song or
music can react very differently (happy, relaxed, agitated, bored). To
study how personal preferences for music can bias our perceptions, researchers assigned
students who preferred listening to classical music over other types of music to groups that
were instructed to sit and relax while listening to either 20 minutes of classical music or 20
minutes of rock music.

Researchers used physiological measures to record anxiety levels both before and after sub-
jects listened to music. Findings showed that only those subjects who listened to their favorite
kind of music (classical music) had a decrease in anxiety levels.

It is most unlikely that you have ever experienced a “pure” sensation because your brain
automatically and instantaneously changes sensations into perceptions.

Despite what you may think, perceptions do not exactly mirror events, people, situations, and
objects in your environment. Rather, perceptions are interpretations, which means that your
perceptions are changed or biased by your personal experiences, memories, emotions, and
motivations.

There are five steps in forming perceptions:

Stimulus - Since normally we experience only perceptions, we are not aware of many preceding
steps. The first step begins with some stimulus, which is any change of energy in the
environment, such as light waves, sound waves, mechanical pressure, or chemicals. The
stimulus activates sense receptors in the eyes, ears, skin, nose, or mouth. In the little girl’s case,
the stimuli are light waves reflecting off the body of a dog.

A stimulus is something that triggers a response in your body or senses. It can be something you
see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. For example, a bright light, a loud sound, or a delicious smell
are all stimuli.
Transduction. After entering to the girl’s eyes, light waves are focused on the retina, which
contains photoreceptors that are sensitive to light. The light waves are absorbed by
photoreceptors, which change physical energy into electrical signals, called transduction.
The electrical signals are changed into impulses that travel to the brain. Sense organs do not
produce sensations but simply transform energy into electrical signals.

Transduction is like the process of turning the stimulus into a signal your brain can understand.
It's how your body changes the information from your senses into electrical signals that your
brain can use.

Brain: primary areas. Impulses from sense organs first go to different primary areas of the
brain. For example, impulses from the ear go to the temporal lobe, from touch to the parietal
lobe, and from the eye to areas in the occipital lobe. When impulses reach primary areas in the
occipital lobe, they are first changed into sensations. However, Gabrielle would not report
seeing sensations.

Your brain is like the control center for your body. The primary areas of the brain are the parts
that first receive and process information from your senses. For example, when you see
something, these areas help you recognize what it is.

Brain: association areas. Each sense sends its particular impulses to a different primary area of
the brain where impulses are changed into sensations, which are meaningless bits of
information, such as shapes, colors, and textures (top right).
The “sensation” impulses are then sent to the appropriate association areas in the brain. The
association areas change meaningless bits into meaningful images, called perceptions, such as a
dog (bottom right).

In the little girl’s case, impulses from her eyes would be changed into visual sensations by the
primary visual area and into perceptions by the visual association areas. However, her
perception of a dog would be changed, biased, and even distorted by many psychological,
emotional, and cultural factors.

After the primary areas, your brain has association areas that help make sense of the
information. These areas help you understand, remember, and connect the new information
with things you already know.

Personalized Perceptions: This means that the way you perceive or understand things is unique
to you. Your experiences, memories, and feelings shape how you see and interpret the world.
What you find beautiful or scary might be different from someone else because of your
personal perceptions.

So, in simple terms, when you experience something (a stimulus), your body turns that
experience into a signal for your brain (transduction). Your brain then has special areas that help
you make sense of what you're experiencing (primary and association areas). And how you
understand and feel about what you're experiencing is influenced by your personal perceptions,
which are based on your own thoughts and experiences.

Structuralist Versus Gestalt Psychologist

The structuralists believed that you add together hundreds of basic elements to form complex
perceptions. They also believed that you can work backward to break down perceptions into
smaller and smaller units, or elements.
For example, structuralists would say that you add together hundreds of basic units, such as
colors, bricks, leaves, branches, tiles, pieces of glass, and bits of steel, to form the perception of
the scene above. However, the structuralists’ explanation of adding bits to form a perception
was hotly denied by Gestalt psychologists.
The Gestalt psychologists said that perceptions were much too complex to be formed by simply
adding sensations together; instead, they believed that perceptions were formed according to a
set of rules.

Gestalt psychologists believed that our brains follow a set of rules that specify how individual
elements are to be organized into a meaningful pattern, or perception.
So how would Gestalt psychologists explain your perception of the scene on the left? They
would say that your perception was not formed by simply adding bits of tile, steel, and foliage
into a whole image. Rather, your brain automatically used a set of rules to combine these
elements to form a unified whole. To emphasize their point, Gestalt psychologists came up with
a catchy phrase, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts,” to mean that perceptions are
not merely combined sensations. The Gestalt psychologists went one step further; they came up
with a list of organizational rules.

You don’t need to feel or to go on that photo to create a perception.

Evidence for Rules: Who won the debate?

Gestalt psychologists won their debate with the structuralists for two reasons. The first reason
comes from our own personal perceptual experiences.
For example, as you look again at the beautiful scene above, we must reveal that it is entirely
fake. The scene, which looks so realistic and three-dimensional, is actually painted on a flat wall.
It seems impossible that we could have such a complex, three-dimensional perceptual
experience from simply combining bits and pieces of bricks, branches, leaves, and steel. This
fake but truly realistic scene makes the Gestalt motto come to life: “The whole is more than the
sum of its parts.”

Equally convincing evidence that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts came from a
remarkably detailed series of studies in which Gestalt psychologists presented stimuli to
subjects and then asked them to describe what they perceived. On the basis of subjects’
reports, researchers discovered that forming perceptions involved more than simply adding and
combining individual elements. Modern research has generally supported the early Gestalt
conclusion that our brains actually do follow a set of rules for organizing and forming
perceptions. We’ll explain these rules for organizing perceptions next.

GESTALT: Organizational Rules

Rules of organization, which were identified by Gestalt psychologists, specify how our brains
combine and organize individual pieces or elements into a meaningful perception.

The figure-ground rule states that, in organizing stimuli, we tend to automatically distinguish
between a figure and a ground: The figure, with more detail, stands
out against the background, which has less detail.

There is some evidence that our ability to separate figure from

ground is an innate response. For example, individuals who were
blind from an early age and had their sight restored as adults were
able to distinguish between figure and ground with little or no
training. The figure-ground rule is one of the first rules that our brain
uses to organize stimuli into a perception. This particular image is
interesting because, as you continue to stare at it, the figure and
ground will suddenly reverse and you’ll see profiles of two faces. However, in the real world, the
images and objects we usually perceive are not reversible because they
have more distinct shapes.

The closure rule states that, in organizing stimuli, we tend to fill in any
missing parts of a figure and see the figure as complete.

Although the lines are incomplete, you can easily perceive this drawing as a
cat or dog.
For example, the closure rule explains why you can fill in letters missing on a
sign or pieces missing in a jigsaw puzzle.

The simplicity rule states that stimuli are organized in the simplest way
possible.

Look at figure A and then decide if it is made up of the pieces shown in figure B,
C, or D. Almost everyone sees figure A as made up of the pieces in figure B—an
oval with an overlapping square.

The simplicity rule states that stimuli are organized in the simplest way possible.
For example, almost no one sees figure A as having been formed from the
complicated pieces shown in figure C or figure D.
As you scan this figure, keep track of the path that your eyes follow. Most people’s eyes will
move from left to right in a continuous line, following the path from A to B or from C to D.
The continuity rule states that, in organizing stimuli, we tend to favor smooth or continuous
paths when interpreting a series of points or lines. Tend perceive complex figures as divided into
several simpler figures.

The similarity rule states that, in organizing stimuli, we group

together elements that appear similar.

As you look at this figure filled with light and dark blue dots, you
see a dark blue numeral 2.
The similarity rule causes us to group the dark blue dots together
and prevents us from seeing the figure as a random arrangement of
light and dark blue dots.

Notice that although there are exactly eight circles in each horizontal line,
you perceive each line as formed by a different number of groups of
circles.

The proximity rule states that, in organizing stimuli, we group together

objects that are physically close to one another.

The proximity rule states that, in organizing stimuli, we group together

objects that are physically close to one another. You automatically group
circles that are close together and thus perceive the first line as
composed of three groups.

The continuity rule states that, in organizing stimuli, we tend to favor

smooth or continuous paths when interpreting a series of points or lines.

Conclusion.
These figures demonstrate the Gestalt rules of organizing stimuli into
perceptions. Young children slowly learn these perceptual rules and begin to use them as early
as infancy.
As adults we use these rules to organize thousands of stimuli into perceptions, especially stimuli
in print and advertisements. For doctors who read mammograms and other X rays, Gestalt rules
such as figure-ground, similarity, and proximity are essential in their daily work.
Next, we examine the question: How can objects change yet appear to remain the same?

4 KINDS OF PERCEPTUAL CONSTANCY

1. Size Constancy
2. Shape Constancy
3. Brightness
 4. Color Constancy

The study of perception is full of interesting puzzles, such as how cars, people, and pets can
change their shapes as they move about yet we perceive them as remaining the same size and
shape.

For example, a car doesn’t grow smaller as it speeds away, even though its
shape on your retina grows smaller and smaller. A door doesn’t become a
trapezoid as you walk through it, even though that’s what happens to its
shape on your retina. These are examples of how perceptions remain
constant, a phenomenon called perceptual constancy.

Perceptual constancy refers to our tendency to perceive sizes, shapes, brightness, and colors as
remaining the same even though their physical characteristics are constantly changing.
We’ll discuss four kinds of perceptual constancy—size, shape, brightness, and color.

Size constancy refers to our tendency to perceive objects as remaining the same size even when
their images on the retina are continually growing or shrinking.

Shape constancy refers to your tendency to perceive an object as retaining its same shape even
though when you view it from different angles, its shape is continually changing its image on the
retina.

Brightness constancy refers to the tendency to perceive brightness as remaining the same in
changing illumination.

Color constancy refers to the tendency to perceive colors as remaining stable despite
differences in lighting.

DEPTH PERCEPTION
Depth Perception - Depth perception refers to the ability of your eye and brain to add a third
dimension, depth, to all visual perceptions, even though images projected on the retina are in
only two dimensions, height and width.

Depth perception in psychology refers to the ability of the human brain to perceive and
interpret the three-dimensional (3D) spatial arrangement of objects in our environment. It
allows us to see the world in three dimensions, which is essential for tasks such as judging
distances, sizes, and shapes of objects, as well as navigating our surroundings.

Binocular (Two Eyes) depth cues depend on the movement of both eyes (bi means “two”;
ocular means “eye”).
Binocular Cues: Hold your finger in front of your face and focus on it with one eye, then the
other. Notice how your finger appears to shift its position against the background. The brain
uses the disparity between the two images to perceive depth.
Binocular cues: These cues rely on the fact that humans have
two eyes positioned a short distance apart. The brain
processes the slightly different images received by each eye
and uses the disparity (the difference in the location of an
object on the retina of each eye) to calculate depth. This is
known as stereopsis and is especially useful for perceiving
depth in close-up objects.

Convergence refers to a binocular cue for depth perception based on

signals sent from muscles that turn the eyes. To focus on near or
approaching objects, these muscles turn the eyes inward, toward the nose.
The brain uses the signals sent by these muscles to determine the distance
of the object.

Retinal disparity refers to a binocular depth cue

that depends on the distance between the eyes.
Because of their different positions, each eye
receives a slightly different image. The difference
between the right and left eyes’ images is the retinal
disparity. The brain interprets a large retinal disparity
to mean a close object and a small retinal
disparity to mean a distant object.

Monocular (One Eye) depth cues are produced by signals from a single eye.
Monocular cues most commonly arise from the way objects are arranged in
the environment.

Linear perspective is a monocular depth cue that results

as parallel lines come together, or converge, in the
distance.

Relative size is a monocular cue for depth that results

when we expect two objects to be the same size and they
are not. In that case, the larger of the two objects will
appear closer and the smaller will appear farther away.

Interposition
is a monocular cue for depth perception that comes into play when objects overlap. The
overlapping object appears closer, and the object that is overlapped appears farther away.

As you look at the school of fish in the photo above, you can easily perceive which fish are in
front and which are in back, even though all the fish are about the same size. You can identify
and point out which fish are closest to you and which are farthest away by using the monocular
depth cue of overlap, which is called interposition.

Light and shadow make up monocular cues for depth perception:

Brightly lit objects appear closer, while objects in shadows appear
farther away.

Notice how the brightly lit edges of the footprints appear closer, while
the shadowy imprint in the sand appears to recede. Also, the sunny side
of the sand dune seems closer, while the back side in shadows appears
farther away. The monocular depth cues shown here involve the
interplay of light and shadows.

Texture gradient is a monocular depth cue in which areas with sharp,

detailed texture are interpreted as being closer and those with less
sharpness and poorer detail are perceived as more distant.

You can’t help but notice how the wide, detailed surface cracks in the
mud seem closer, while the less detailed and narrower cracks appear
farther away. These sharp changes in surface details are monocular
depth cues created by texture gradients.

Atmospheric perspective is a monocular depth cue that is created by the presence

of dust, smog, clouds, or water vapor. We perceive clearer objects as being nearer,
and we perceive hazy or cloudy objects as being farther away.

One of the depth cues you may have overlooked is created by changes in the
atmosphere. For example, both the man sitting on the chair and the edge of the cliff
appear much closer than the fog- shrouded hills and landscape in the background.
These monocular depth cues are created by changes in the atmosphere.

Motion parallax is a monocular depth cue based on

the speed of moving objects. We perceive objects that
appear to be moving at high speed as closer to us than
those moving more slowly or appearing stationary.

In this photo, you can easily tell which riders seem

closer to you and which appear farther away. That’s
because you perceive fast-moving or blurry objects (horsemen on the right) as being closer to
you and slower moving or clearer objects (horsemen on the left) as being farther away. These
monocular depth cues come from the way you perceive motion.

ILLUSIONS
An illusion is a perceptual experience in which you perceive an image as being so strangely
distorted that, in reality, it cannot and does not exist. An illusion is created by manipulating the
perceptual cues so that your brain can no longer correctly interpret space, size, and depth cues.

The Ames room, named after its designer, shows that

our perception of size can be distorted by changing
depth cues.

In the Ames
room (on
photo), you
perceive the
boy on the
right to be twice as tall as the woman on the left. In
fact, the boy is smaller than the woman but appears
larger because of the design of the Ames room.

The Ponzo illusion is a visual illusion in which two lines of equal length
appear to be of different lengths due to the way they are presented in a
specific context. It is an optical illusion that demonstrates how our brains
can be tricked into perceiving the size of objects based on their
surrounding context.

The Müller-Lyer illusion is a

visual illusion in which two
lines of equal length appear
to be of different lengths due
to the presence of arrow-like
tails at their ends, one set
pointing inward and the
other set pointing outward.
This illusion highlights how
our perception of line lengths
can be influenced by context.
CULTURAL DIVERSITY: Influence on Perceptions
Cultural influences are persuasive pressures that encourage members of a particular society or
ethnic group to conform to shared behaviors, values, and
beliefs.

What Do Cultural Influences Do?

If you visit ethnic sections of large U.S. cities, such as
Chinatown or Little Italy, or visit foreign countries, you
become aware of cultural differences and influences. For
example, on the first photo shows two Japanese women in
traditional robes and setting, which symbolize the different
cultural influences of Japan compared to Western countries.

No one doubts that cultural influences affect the way people

eat, dress, talk, and socialize. But you are less likely to notice
how cultural influences also affect how you perceive things in your own environment.

Perception of Faces
It is generally believed that basic visual processes, such as recognizing faces, are common to all
people, regardless of their culture. People all around the world are able to quickly recognize
whether a face is familiar or not, but new research shows that people’s culture influences the
process they use to recognize faces.

Eye contact is important in Western culture but

inappropriate and even improper in many
Asian cultures. It is possible that Asians are
taught to recognize faces without looking into
others’ eyes