FOUR GOALS

OF
PSYCHOLOGY
1. Describe – Observing behaviour and taking
note of what is happening
2. Explain – behaviour is being understood by
explaining it
3. Predict – determining what will happen in
the future
4. Control – to change behaviour from an
undesirable one to desirable
 IMPORTANT
PERSONALITIES
IN
PSYCHOLOGY
IVAN PAVLOV
Famous Russian scientist that discovered
that a behavior can be conditioned.
● Known for his Classical Conditioning
○ Learning by association: the process by
which an individual learns a new
association between two stimuli - a neutral
stimulus and one that already evokes a
reflective response.
● Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) = something
that automatically elicits an unconditioned
response.
● Unconditioned Response (UCR) = an action
that the UCS elicits
● Neutral Stimulus (NS) = a stimulus that at first
elicits no response but after repeated pairing
with a UCS, produces a conditioned response
● Conditioned Stimulus (CS) = a stimulus that
eventually triggers a response that depends
on preceding conditions - that is, pairing of the
CS with the UCS.
● Conditioned Response (CR) = whatever
response the CS begins to elicit as a result of
the conditioning (training) procedure.
Albert Ellis
An American cognitive behavioral therapist who
developed Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy
(REBT)
● Basic Assumption: people are responsible for
the creation of their psychological problems
due to the absolutistic beliefs they make of the
event they experienced in the past.
● Integrative Approach: cognitions, emotions,
and behaviors have a reciprocal
cause-and-effect relationship in that they each
influence one another to produce an effect.
SOLOMON ASCH
He became famous in the 1950s, following experiments
which showed that social pressure (Conformity) can
make a person say something that is obviously incorrect.
JOHN WATSON
 Established the psychological school of behaviorism,
after doing research on animal behavior. He also
conducted the controversial "Little Albert" experiment.
Behavioral conditioning on humans
CARL ROGERS
 Instrumental in the development of non-directive
psychotherapy, which he initially termed Client-centered
therapy and he is known as the father of client-centered
therapy
● Framework: If the therapist is congruent and
communicates unconditional positive regard
and accurate empathy to the client, then the
client will experience more self-acceptance,
greater trust on self, and so on.
● Two (2) Basic Assumption:
○ Formative Tendency
■ The creative tendency for all matter,
organic or inorganic, to evolve from
simpler to more complex form.
○ Actualizing Tendency
■ The tendency within all humans to move
toward fulfillment of potentials.
■ Organismic experience of the whole person
- conscious or unconscious, physiological
or cognitive.
■ The only motive people possess.
● The need to satisfy one’s hunger drive
● The need to express deep emotion
● The need to accept one’s self
Three conditions for therapeutic growth
● Counselor congruence
○ Being real and genuine; wear no mask and do not
attempt to fake a pleasant facade; avoid any
pretense of friendliness and affection when these
are not truly felt
● Unconditional positive regard
○ Takes place when the need to be liked, prized, or
accepted by another person (therapist) exist without
any condition or qualifications by a therapist who
displays non-possessive warmth and acceptance
Three conditions for therapeutic growth
● Unconditional positive regard (Cont.)
○ By “regard”, there is a close relationship and the
therapist sees the client as an important person.
● Empathic listening
○ The therapist accurately sense the feelings of their
clients and are able to communicate these
perceptions so that client know that another person
has entered their world of their feelings without
prejudice, projection, or evaluation
○ Feeling with the client
Burrhus Frederic
“BF” Skinner
One of the most influential of American psychologists. A
behaviorist, he developed the theory of operant
conditioning
● Behavior is more likely to recur when it is
immediately reinforced.
● In Operant condition, behavior is emitted; they
do not previously exist inside the organism but
they simply appear because of the organism’s
individual history of reinforcement or the
species’ evolutionary history. This is in
contrast to Classical conditioning in which
behavior is elicited (drawn from the organism)
● Reinforcement
○ Positive reinforcement
■ Any stimulus that when added to a
situation, increases the probability that a
given behavior will occur.
■ “Presenting something good which the
individual values would more likely lead
to good behavior”
● Reinforcement
○ Negative reinforcement
■ The removal of an aversive stimulus
from a situation that increases the
probability that a behavior will occur
■ “Removing something bad that the
individual doesn’t like would more likely
lead to good behavior”
● Punishment
○ Positive punishment
■ Presentation of an aversive stimulus to
decrease a behavior.
■ “Giving something bad that the
individual doesn’t would more likely
decrease bad behavior”
● Punishment
○ Negative punishment
■ The removal of a positive stimulus that
decreases the probability that the
behavior will occur.
■ “Removing something good that the
individual values would more likely
decrease bad behavior”
SIGMUND FREUD
Father of psychoanalysis, and is generally recognized as
one of the most influential and authoritative thinkers of
the twentieth century
● Three levels of Mental Life:
○ Unconscious (played a major role in his
theory) – sexual and aggressive drives can
be found
○ Preconscious – can think about even when
we’re not thinking about it
○ Conscious (played a minor role in his
theory) – currently thinking
● Conscious Mind
○ Those mental elements in awareness at
any given point in time.
○ The only level of mental life directly
available to us.
● Preconscious Mind
○ Contains all those elements that are not
conscious but can become conscious
either quite readily or with some difficulty.
● Unconscious Mind
○ Mental life that is beyond conscious
awareness that indirectly manifest as
dreams, slips of the tongue, and certain
kind of forgetting called repression.
○ Unconscious impulses (i.e., sex and
aggression) may appear in consciousness
but only after undergoing certain
transformations through defense
mechanisms.
● Unconscious Mind
○ Constantly strive to become conscious, and
many of them succeed, although they may no
longer appear in their original form.
○ Unconscious ideas can and do motivate people
(e.g., a son’s hostility towards his father may
appear as overwhelming affection). It would
cause too much anxiety to acknowledge this
hostility in conscious awareness so it expresses
itself in exaggerated displays of love.
● Three provinces of the mind
○ hypothetical construct that explain each
part (mental image) of personality that
interact to form a whole that contributes to
behavior:
■ Id
■ Ego
■ Superego
● Id
○ Das Es or “it”.
○ Most primitive part of the mind and at the core
of personality.
○ Completely unconscious and has no contact
with reality.
○ Pleasure principle: sole purpose is to seek
pleasure and immediate gratification without
regard for what is possible (ego) or proper
(superego).
● Ego
○ Constantly tries to reconcile the id, superego,
and the realistic demand of the external world.
Being surrounded on three sides by divergent
and hostile forces, the ego becomes anxious
and uses defense mechanisms to protect itself
against anxiety.
○ Realistic principle
● Superego
○ Moralistic Principle: moral and ideal aspects of
personality.
○ Has no contact with the outside world and
therefore, is unrealistic in its demands for
perfection.
○ The superego watches closely over the ego,
judging its actions and intentions.
○ Feelings of inferiority arise when the ego is
unable to make the superego’s demand.
ABRAHAM
MASLOW
 One of the founders of humanistic psychology and is
often best recognized for developing the theory of human
motivation now known as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
● Hierarchy of needs
○ Assumed that lower level needs must be
satisfied or at least relatively satisfied
before higher needs become motivators.
○ Arranged in a hierarchy or staircase with
each ascending step representing a higher
need but one less basic to survival.
● Physiological needs
○ Food, water, oxygen, maintenance of body
temperature, etc
○ When people do not have their
physiological needs satisfied, they live
primarily for those needs and strive
constantly to satisfy them.
● Safety needs
○ Physical security, stability, dependency,
protection, and freedom from threatening
forces such as war, terrorism, illness,
anxiety, and natural disaster.
○ In societies not at war, most healthy adults
satisfy their safety needs most of the time;
thus, making these needs relatively
unimportant.
● Love and belongingness needs
○ Desire for friendship, wish for a mate and
children, need to belong to a family, club, or
neighborhood.
○ Also include some aspects of sex and
human contact as well as the need to both
love and receive love.
● Esteem needs
○ Self-respect, confidence, competence, and
knowledge that others hold them in high
esteem.
■ Reputation
● Perception of prestige, recognition, or
fame achieved in the eyes of others.
■ Self-esteem
● Person’s own feelings of worth and
confidence.
● Self-Actualization needs
○ Self-fulfillment, realization of all of one’s
potential, and a desire to become creative
in the full sense of the word.
○ To be fully human that allows for
expression of basic human needs without
being suppressed by culture.
○ Self-actualizing people become
independent of the lower level needs that
gave them birth.
ALFRED ADLER
Among Adler’s chief contributions are the importance of
birth order in the formation of personality, the impact of
neglect or pampering on child development
● Adler’s theory rest heavily on the notion of social
interest (feeling of oneness with all humankind /
interest in society’s wellfare).
● To adler, people are born with weak, inferior bodies -
a condition that leads to feelings of inferiority that
all people have and as a consequent dependence
on other people. If exaggerated, it becomes
inferiority complex. According to him, people are
“blessed” with organic inferiorities as it serves as an
impetus towards perfection or completion.
ALBERT BANDURA
Observational learning or modeling
● Observational learning
○ By observing others, people can learn without
performing any behavior.
○ This allows them to learn the consequence of a
behavior without experiencing them first hand.
KAREN HORNEY
 Neo-Freudian that believed that there was an inner
conflict but did not agree with the penis envy and women
having less of an ability to suppress their urges.
● Social and cultural conditions, especially in
childhood experiences, are largely responsible for
shaping personality.
● People who do not have their need for love and
affection satisfied during childhood develop basic
hostility towards their parents that are repressed
and lead to profound feelings of insecurity and
apprehension called basic anxiety: a feeling of
being isolated and helpless in a potentially hostile
world.
 Basic hostility

Basic anxiety

Defense against anxiety

Normal defense
Neurotic defense
● Toward people (friendly)
● Toward people (compliant)
● Against people (survivor)
● Against people (aggressive)
● Away from people
● Away from people (detached)
(autonomous, serene)
LAWRENCE
KOHLBERG
The theory holds that moral reasoning, the basis for
ethical behavior, has six identifiable developmental
stages, each more adequate at responding to moral
dilemmas than its predecessor.
● Preconventional Morality (until age 9)
○ Children have yet to develop their own morality
and base their decision on the expectations
and standards of adults.
■ Stage 1: Avoidance of punishment
● Children perceive the rules of adult as
absolute in which obedience is equated
with avoidance of punishment while
disobedience entails punishment that
they committed something wrong.
● “How can I avoid being punished?”
● Preconventional Morality (until age 9)
■ Stage 2: Individualism and exchange
● Children realize there is more than just
one way of viewing things and they
develop their own perspective that
allows them to judge their action that is
vested on self-interest.
● “What’s in it for me? What will I gain?”
● Conventional Morality (10-13)
○ Adolescents are accepting of social rules
regarding what is right or wrong. In addition,
values and standards of morality learned from
adults are internalized.
■ Stage 3: Good interpersonal relationship
● Adolescents actively engage in good
behaviors in order to be perceived as a
good person and gain approval from
others.
● “Good girl attitude”
● Conventional Morality (10-13)
○ Adolescents are accepting of social rules regarding
what is right or wrong. In addition, values and
standards of morality learned from adults are
internalized.
■ Stage 4: Maintaining social order
● Adolescents become aware of the
importance of maintaining social order by
obeying the law, following rules, upholding
one’s duty, and respecting authorities. In this
stage, a behavior is wrong if it causes harm to
others.
● Post-Conventional Morality (early adolescence-
adulthood)
○ Abstract principles of morality is developed and
acceptance of universally recognized ethical
principles.
○ Not all adults develop this morality.
■ Stage 5: Social contract and individual rights
● The existence of social contracts and
individuals rights are evaluated based on
one’s beliefs, values, and opinions of others.
Rules of law is important for social order but
must also be examined on its impact and
benefit for the greater good.
● Post-Conventional Morality (early adolescence-
adulthood)
○ Abstract principles of morality is developed and
acceptance of universally recognized ethical
principles.
○ Not all adults develop this morality.
■ Stage 6: Universal principle
● People develop their own social standards,
morality, and principle that may or may not be
in agreement with those of others. At this
stage, people follow their internalized
principle of justice that may or may not reflect
the standards set by law or that of social
norm.
GORDON ALLPORT
Gordon Allport's theory of personality development is one
of the first humanistic theories. Allport is known as a
"trait" psychologist. One of his early projects was to go
through the dictionary and locate every term that he
thought could describe a person.
● According to Allport, the most important structures of
personality are those description of individual
characteristics called personal dispositions that is
unique to the individual.
○ Levels of Personal Dispositions
■ Cardinal dispositions
● Obvious characteristics or ruling passion so
outstanding that it dominates their life.
● Adolf Hitler = evil
● Narcissus = sadistic
● Albert Einstein = brilliant
● Marquis de Sade = sadism
○ Levels of Personal Dispositions
■ Central dispositions
● According to Allport, everyone has 5-10
central dispositions that are so descriptive of
the person that friends and families would be
able to present similar descriptions.
● Outstanding characteristics around which a
person’s life focuses.
● You probably have 5 traits about you that you
can enumerate on the spot that describes
you.
○ Levels of Personal Dispositions
■ Secondary dispositions
● Traits that are less obvious and not central to
personality yet occurs with some regularity
and are responsible for one’s specific
behaviors.
● Examples:
○ Preference to pineapple pizza
○ Likes Sprite but not pepsi
WILHELM WUNDT
Founding father of psychology. Established the
experimental branch of psychology.
● Opened the first laboratory dedicated to
psychology in the University of Leipzig,
Germany in 1879 that marked the beginning of
modern psychology and made psychology a
valid science.
● Separated psychology from philosophy by
making it more systematic and objective
through experimentations.
JEAN PIAGET
● According to Piaget, behavior is based on
schemata (plural of schema).
○ Schema: an organized way of interacting
with others
■ Grasping and sucking schema in
children.
■ Dogs according to a child that has only
seen a shih tzu (e.g., “all dogs are
small”)
● Piaget contended that children progresses
through four (4) major stages of intellectual
development:
○ Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years old)
○ Preoperational stage (2-7 years old)
○ Concrete operations stage (7-11 years old)
○ Formal operations stage (11 years
onwards)
● Sensorimotor stage
○ Children gain knowledge through sensory
experience and behavior is mostly simple
motor responses to sensory stimuli.
○ Children respond only to what they see and
hear at the moment.
○ Children lacks Object permanence
■ The idea that objects continue to exist
even when we do not see them or hear
them.
● Sensorimotor stage
○ Sense of self
■ Babies younger than 11/2 years have no
self-recognition but once they reach that
age, they are able to recognize
themselves when in front of a mirror.
They are able to tell that they are seeing
themselves rather than reacting in
fascination at themselves.
● Preoperational stage
○ Children are able to develop language and
understand object permanence but lacks
operations which are reversible mental process
(e.g., a mother can also be someone’s daughter)
○ Three types of preoperational thought:
■ Egocentrism
■ Difficulty distinguishing appearance from
reality
■ Lacking concept of conservation
● Preoperational stage
○ Distinguishing appearance from reality
■ Piaget contended that young children do not
distinguish clearly between appearance and
reality.
■ For example, a child sees an adult put a white
ball behind a blue filter and say that the ball is
blue. When asked by the adult what the color
really is, the child will insist that its blue
(because of the filter and not by its actual
color)
● Preoperational stage
○ Concept of conservation
■ Children lack the concept of conservation in
which they fail to understand that objects
conserve such properties as number, length,
volume, area, and mass after changes in the
shape or arrangement of the objects.
● Formal Operations
○ Children develop mental processes that deals
with abstract, hypothetical situations that
demands logical, deductive reasoning (general
to specific) and systematic planning.
ERIK ERIKSON
Developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known
for his theory on social development of human beings,
and for coining the phrase identity crisis.
CARL JUNG
 Believed that the personality formed from a collective
unconscious involving archetypes that all humans have.
● According to Jung, the mind (i.e., psyche) has
both a conscious and unconscious level.
○ Three levels of the psyche:
■ Conscious
■ Personal unconscious
■ Collective unconscious
● Conscious
○ Images sensed by the ego, whereas the
unconscious has no relationship with the
ego.
○ Ego: center of consciousness but not the
core of personality. Not the whole personality
but must be completed by the more
comprehensive self: center of personality
that is unconscious.
● Personal unconscious
○ All repressed, forgotten, subliminally perceived
experience of one particular individual (e.g.,
forgotten events in childhood).
○ Some can be recalled easily, some
remembered with difficulty, and others beyond
the reach of consciousness.
○ Contents of the personal unconscious are
called complexes.
● Collective unconscious
○ Has roots in the ancestral parts of the entire
species.
○ According to Jung, the physical contents of the
collective unconscious are inherited and passed
from one generation to the next as psychic
potential.
○ Does not lie dormant but actively influences a
person’s thought, emotion, and action.
○ The contents of the collective unconscious is
called archetype.
● Developmental Psychology
a. the study of human development
and the factors that shape
behaviour from birth to old age.
● Social Psychology
a. the study of how people think
about, influence, relate with one
another, and the ways interactions
with other people influence
attitudes and behaviour.
● Clinical Psychology
a. the study of the diagnosis and
treatment of emotional and
behavioural problems.
● Counseling Psychology
a. the study that deals with personal
problems such as medical, social
or vocational problems; counselling
psychologists deal with less
serious problems compared to
clinical psychologists
● School and Educational Psychology
a. the study that deals with the
evaluation of learning and
emotional problems of individuals
in schools
● Industrial/Organizational Psychology
a. the study involving the selection of
people most suitable for particular
jobs, the development of training
programs in organizations, and the
identification of determinants of
consumer behaviour
● Biological Psychology
a. the study that employs the
biological perspective, seeking to
discover the relationships between
biological processes and behavior
● Experimental Psychology
a. the study that employs the
behavioural and cognitive
perspectives as well as the
experimental method in studying
how people react to sensory
stimuli, perceive the world, learn,
remember and respond.
● Forensic Psychology
a. the study that applies psychology
to the law and legal proceedings
● Sports Psychology
a. the study that applies theories and
knowledge in psychology to
enhance athletes’ and coaches’
performance
● Abnormal Psychology
a. the study that deals with the
diagnosis and causes of mental
disorders
● Health Psychology
a. the study of cognitive, affective,
behavioural, and interpersonal
factors affecting health and illness
● General Psychology
a. is the foundation of studying
science of psychology that deals
with basic principles, problems and
methods of human development,
emotions, motivation, learning,
memory, senses, thinking,
perception, processing, and
intelligence.
● Chromosomal Abnormalities
○ Sometimes a gamete is formed in which
the male’s sperm and/or the female’s
ovum do not have their normal set of 23
chromosomes.
● Down Syndrome
○ a form of intellectual
disability caused by the
presence of an extra copy
of chromosome 21.
○ An individual with Down
syndrome has a round
face, a flattened skull, an
extra fold of skin over the
eyelids, a protruding
tongue, short limbs, and
impaired motor and
mental abilities.
● Klinefelter syndrome
○ Sex-linked chromosomal
abnormality in which
males have an extra X
chromosome, making
them XXY instead of XY.
○ Males with this disorder
have undeveloped testes,
and they usually have
enlarged breasts and
become tall.
● Fragile X syndrome
○ A genetic disorder that
results from an abnormality
in the X chromosome,
which becomes constricted
and often breaks.
○ An intellectual difficulty
frequently is an outcome,
which may take the form of
an intellectual disability,
autism, a learning disability,
or a short attention span.
● Turner syndrome
○ A chromosomal disorder in
females (or males VERY rarely) in
which either an X chromosome is
missing, making the person XO
instead of XX, or part of one X
chromosome is deleted.
○ Females with Turner syndrome
are short in stature and have a
webbed neck. They might be
infertile and have difficulty in
mathematics, but their verbal
ability is often quite good.
● XYY syndrome
○ A chromosomal disorder in which a male has an
extra Y chromosome.
○ Early interest in this syndrome focused on the belief
that the extra Y chromosome found in some males
contributed to aggression and violence. However,
researchers subsequently found that XYY males are
no more likely to commit crimes than are normal XY
males
Social and
emotioanal
development
 Reflexes
• Built-in reactions to stimuli
• Genetically carried survival
mechanisms
• Allow infants to respond adaptively
to their environment before they
have had the opportunity to learn
● Rooting reflex
○ Occurs when the infant’s cheek is stroked
or the side of the mouth is touched.
○ In response, the infant turns its head toward
the side that was touched in an apparent
effort to find something to suck.
● Sucking reflex
○ Occurs when newborns automatically suck
an object placed in their mouth.
○ This reflex enables newborns to get
nourishment before they have associated a
nipple with food and also serves as a
self-soothing or self-regulating mechanism.
● Moro reflex
○ Occurs in response to a sudden, intense
noise or movement.
○ When startled, the newborn arches its back,
throws back its head, and flings out its
arms and legs.
○ Then the newborn rapidly draws in its arms
and legs. The Moro reflex is believed to be a
way of grabbing for support while falling.
● Grasping reflex
○ Occurs when something touches the
infant’s palms.
○ The infant responds by grasping tightly.
○ By the end of the third month, the grasping
reflex diminishes and the infant shows a
more voluntary grasp.
■ Babinski reflex
● Occurs in healthy infant in which the big toe
extends upward and the other toes fan out
when the sole of the foot is gently
stimulated.
• Mary Ainsworth
-Created the strange situation, an
observational measure of infant attachment
that takes about 20 minutes (3 mins for each
episode) in which the infant experiences a
series of introductions, separations, and
reunions with the caregiver and an adult
stranger in a prescribed order.
• Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation
-A mother and her infant (typically 12 to 18
months old) come into a room with many toys.
Then a stranger enters the room. The mother
leaves and then returns. A few minutes later,
both the stranger and the mother leave.
Then the stranger returns, and finally, the
mother returns.
Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation
-Securely attached
• The infant uses the mother as a base of
exploration, cooing at her, showing her toys,
and making eye contact with her.
• The infant shows some distress when the
mother leaves but cries only briefly if at all.
• When she returns the infant goes to her with
apparent delight, cuddles for a while, and
then returns to the toys
Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation
-Anxious (or resistant)
• Responses toward the mother fluctuate
between happy and angry.
• The infant clings to the mother and cries
profusely when she leaves, as if worried that
she might not return.
• When she does return, the infant clings to
her again but does not use her as a base to
explore the toys
Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation
-Avoidant
• While the mother is present, the infant does
not stay near her and seldom interacts with
her
• The infant may or may not cry when she
leaves and does not go to her when she
returns
Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation
-Disorganized
• The infant seems not even to notice the
mother or looks away while approaching her
or covers his or her face or lies on the floor.
• The infant alternates between approach and
avoidance and shows more fear than
affection.
LOBES OF THE
CEREBRAL
CORTEX
 FRONTAL LOBE
● Problem-solving, creative thinking, and
personality.
● Associated with higher mental abilities and
play a role in your sense of self. This area is
also responsible for the control of movement.
 FRONTAL LOBE
● Association Cortex
○ Broca’s Area
■ “speech center” that is part of the left
frontal association area.
■ Damage to Broca’s area causes motor
(or expressive) aphasia, a great difficulty
in speaking or writing. Generally, the
person knows what she or he wants to
say but can’t seem to fluently utter the
words.
 FRONTAL LOBE
● Prefrontal Cortex
○ The very front of the frontal association
region related to more complex behaviors.
○ Damage to the prefrontal cortex affects the
following:
■ Personality
■ Emotional life
■ Sense of self
■ Reasoning
■ Planning
 PARIETAL LOBE
● Areas of the cortex in which bodily
sensations register.
● Touch, temperature, pressure, and other
somatic sensations flow into the
primary somatosensory area.
 TEMPORAL LOBE
● Areas of the cortex that include the sites in which
hearing registers in the brain.
● Auditory information projects directly to the primary
auditory area, making it the main site where hearing
first registers.
● Wernicke’s area
○ An association area that functions as a
language site.
○ If it is damaged, the result is a receptive (or
fluent) aphasia. Although the person can hear
speech, he or she has difficulty understanding
the meaning of words
 OCCIPITAL LOBE
● Portion of the cerebral cortex in which vision
registers in the brain.
● Patients with tumors (cell growths that interfere
with brain activity) in the primary visual area, the
part of the cortex to first receive input from the
eyes, experience blind spots in their vision
● Visual Agnosia
○ Inability to identify seen objects.
○ Facial Agnosia: inability to perceive familiar
faces.
● Sensory Adaptation
○ Happens when we reduce our sensitivity to
a stimulus after constant exposure to it
● Sensory Analysis
○ As they process information, the senses
divide the world into important perceptual
features, or basic stimulus patterns.
○ The visual system, for example, has a set
of feature detectors that are attuned to
very specific stimuli, such as lines, shapes,
edges, spots, colors, and other patterns.
● Trichromatic theory
○ A Theory of color vision based on three
cone types: red, green, and blue.
○ Other colors result from combinations
of these three.
○ Doesn’t explain afterimage
● Opponent-process theory
○ Theory of color vision based on three coding
systems (red or green, yellow or blue, black or white)
which states that vision analyzes colors into
“either-or” messages.
○ That is, the visual system can produce messages for
either red or green, yellow or blue, black or white.
○ Coding one color in a pair (red, for instance) seems
to block the opposite message (green) from coming
through. As a result, a reddish green is impossible,
but a yellowish red (orange) can occur.
● Bottom-up processing
○ Organizing perceptions by
beginning with low level
features.
● Top-down processing
○ Applying higher-level
knowledge to rapidly organize
sensory information into a
meaningful perception.
● Depth cues
○ features of the environment and
messages from the body that provides
information about distance and space.
■ Types:
● Binocular depth cues
● Monocular depth cues
● Binocular depth cues
○ Perceptual features that impart
information about distance and
three-dimensional space which require
two eyes.
● Monocular depth cues
○ Perceptual features that impart information
about distance and three-dimensional
space which require just one eye.
○ Pictorial depth cues
■ Monocular depth cues found in
paintings, drawings, and photographs
that impart information about space,
depth, and distance.
1. Linear
perspective.
convergence of
parallel lines in
the environment.
2. Relative size.
If an artist
wishes to depict
two objects of
the same size at
different
distances, the
artist makes the
more distant
object smaller.
3. Height in the
picture plane.
Objects that are
placed higher in
a drawing tend to
look more
distant.
4. Light and shadow.
Most objects are lighted
in ways that create clear
patterns of light and
shadow. Copying such
patterns of light and
shadow can give a two-
dimensional design a
three-dimensional
appearance.
5. Overlap.
Occurs when
one object
partially blocks
another object.
6. Texture gradient.
Changes in texture also
contribute to depth
perception. If you stand in
the middle of a
cobblestone street, the
street will look coarse
near your feet. However,
its texture will get smaller
and finer if you look into
the distance.
7. Aerial Perspective.
Smog, fog, dust, and haze
add to the apparent
distance of an object.
Because of aerial
perspective, distant
objects tend to be hazy,
washed out in color, and
lacking in detail.
8. Relative Motion.
Can be seen by looking
out a window and moving
your head from side to
side. Notice that nearby
objects appear to move a
sizable distance as your
head moves.