Chapter- 3

Perception
Perception:
The process through which people take raw
sensations from the environment and interpret
them, using knowledge, experience, and
understanding of the world, so that the
sensations become meaningful experiences.
 contd.

“ Perception is the process of receiving information about

and making sense of the world around us.
“ The study of perception is concerned with identifying the
process through which we interpret and organize
sensory information to produce our conscious
experience of objects and object relationship.”
It involves-
 deciding which information to notice,
 how to categorize this information, and
 how to interpret it within the framework of existing
knowledge.
Psychophysics:

An area of research focusing on the

relationship between the physical
characteristics of environmental stimuli and
the psychological experiences those stimuli
produce.
Absolute Thresholds:
Threshold—refers to a point above which a stimulus is
perceived and below which it is not perceived. It
determines when we first become aware of a stimulus.
The smallest amount of light, sound, pressure, or
energy we can detect .
 contd.

Subliminal stimulation :
Stimulation that is too weak or brief to be perceived.

Supraliminal stimulation :
Stimulation that is strong enough to be consistently
perceived.
 contd.

Some Absolute Thresholds:

Absolute thresholds can be amazingly low. Here are examples
of stimulus equivalents at the absolute threshold for the five
primary senses in humans.

Human sense absolute Threshold equivalent

 Vision :
A candle flame seen at 30 miles on a clear night

 Hearing :
The tick of a watch from 20 feet away
 Some Absolute Thresholds

 Taste :One teaspoon of sugar in 2 gallons of water

 Smell: One drop of perfume diffused into the entire

volume of air in a six-room apartment

 Touch: The wing of a fly falling on your cheek from a

distance of 1 centimeter
Why does absolute threshold vary?

Stimuli just above and just below the absolute

threshold are sometimes detected and sometimes
missed.

Why should the “absolute” threshold vary this way?

The two most important reasons have to do with

sensitivity and our response criterion.
 contd.

Sensitivity refers to our ability to pick out a particular

stimulus, or signal.
Sensitivity is influenced by the intensity of the signal
(stronger ones are easier to detect),
the power of our sensory systems (good vision or hearing
makes us more sensitive), and
the amount of background stimulation, or noise, arriving
at the same time.
 contd.

The second source of variation in absolute threshold

comes from the response criterion, which reflects our
willingness to say that a particular stimulus is a signal
rather than noise.

Motivation—our wants and needs — as well as

expectancies affect the response criterion.
 contd.

Suppose that you work at an airport security checkpoint,

where you spend hours looking at passenger body scans
or X-ray images of their handbags, briefcases, and
luggage.

The signal to be detected in this situation is a weapon or

bomb, whereas the “noise” consists of all the harmless
objects appearing on the viewing screen.
 Signal Detection Theory:
A mathematical model of what determines a persons
report that a near threshold stimulus has or has not
occurred.

A psychologist using signal detection theory would

analyze our responses to a series of trials on which lights
or sounds may or may not occurred.

The lights would be so faint that we would be find it

hard to tell whether a signal occurred or whether there
was only background noise.
 contd.

Our response on each trial would be placed into four

categories:

1. A false alarm
2. A miss
3. A hit
4. A correct rejection
 contd.

A psychophysical theory that divides the detection of a

sensory signal into a sensory process and a decision
process.

Stimulus is Stimulus is
Present Absent
Response: Hit False Alarm
“Present”
Response: Miss Correct Rejection
“Absent”
 contd.

1. A false alarm is an error that occurs when external or

internal noise is high enough to make you report a
signal when no signal was presented.

2. Miss:
If a signal occurs but is so faint that it does not
produce enough stimulation for you to detect it, you
will have made an error known as a miss.
 contd.

3. Hit :
A person with a more sensitive sensory system might
have correctly detected that same stimulus when it
occurred—which is called a hit.

4. Correct rejection :
If no signal occurs and you don’t report one, you will
have made a correct rejection
 Just Noticeable Difference
Just-noticeable difference (JND):
The smallest detectable difference in stimulus energy.

The just noticeable difference (JND), also known as the difference

threshold, is the minimum difference of stimulation that a person
can detect 50 percent of the time.

For example, if you were asked to hold two objects of different

weights, the just noticeable difference would be the minimum
weight difference between the two that you could sense half of the
time.
 contd.

Your ability to judge differences between stimuli depends

partly on the strength of the stimuli you are dealing with.

The weaker the stimuli are, the easier it is to detect small

differences between them.

For example, if you are comparing the weight of two

envelopes, you will be able to detect a difference of as little
as a fraction of an ounce.

But if you are comparing two boxes weighing around 50

pounds each, you may not notice a difference unless it is a
pound or more.
 contd.

It is important not to confuse the Just noticeable

difference and the absolute threshold.

While the difference threshold/ JND involves the ability to

detect differences in stimulation levels,

the absolute threshold refers to the smallest detectable

level of stimulation.
Perceptual Organization/
Organizing the Perceptual World:

Perceptual organization is a process that groups the visual

elements so that it is easy to determine the meaning of
the visual as a whole. It is an essential concept because it
allows individuals to make sense of the things that they
see at a rapid pace.
Basic Processes in Perceptual Organization

To understand the way our perceptual systems organize,

psychologists have focused on two basic processes:

1. Figure ground discrimination and

2. Grouping.
Figure Ground Discrimination

One Gestalt principle is the figure-ground relationship.

According to this principle, we tend to segment our visual
world into figure and ground.

Figure is the object or person that is the focus of the visual

field, while the ground is the background.

our perception can vary tremendously, depending on what

is perceived as figure and what is perceived as ground.
 contd.

Figure ground perception is the tendency to discriminate

between target and background stimuli.
The stimulus we perceive as being the target is referred to as
the figure.

When you look at a complex scene or listen to a noisy

environment, your perceptual apparatus automatically
emphasizes certain features, objects, or sounds; all other
stimuli in that environment become the background.
 contd.

So as you drive toward an intersection, a stop sign stands

out clearly against the background of trees, houses, and
cars.
This is an example of figure- ground discrimination.
A figure, as the part of the visual field that has meaning,
stands in front of the rest and always seems to include the
contours or edges that separate it from the less relevant
ground, or background.
Edges are one of the most basic features detected by our
visual system; they combine to form figures.
contd.
 contd.

The concept of figure-ground relationship explains why this

image can be perceived either as a vase or as a pair of faces.
 Grouping Principles
The principles of grouping ( or Gestalt laws of grouping ) are set of principles of
psychology, proposed by Gestalt.
‘Gestalt’ is a German word which means ‘shape’ or ‘form’.
Gestalt psychologists argued that these principles exists because the mind has an innate
disposition to perceive patterns in the stimulus based on certain rules and these principles are
organized into five categories. It means when parts identified individually have different
characteristics to the whole.
For example: describing a tree – it’s parts are trunk, branches, leaves, perhaps blossoms or fruit
but when we look at the entire tree, we are not conscious of the parts, we are aware of the
overall object- the tree. Parts are of secondary importance even though they can be clearly
seen.
Gestalt Grouping principles
Some of the most enduring of these principles are the
following:
 = +

= +

(A) PROXIMITY (B) SIMILARITY (C) CONTINUITY

(D) CLOSURE (E) TEXTURE (F) SIMPLICITY

(G) COMMON REGION

GROUPING PRINCIPLES
1. Proximity:
The principle of proximity
states that things that are
close together appear to be
more related than things that
are spaced farther apart.
The closer objects or events
are to one another, the more
likely we are to perceive them
as belonging together.

34
contd.
 contd.
2. Similarity :
The principle of similarity states
that when things appear to be
similar to each other, we group
them together. And we also tend
to think they have the same
function.
For instance, in this image, there
appear to be two separate and
distinct groups based on shape:
the circles and the triangles.
 contd.

A variety of design elements, like color and organization, can

be used to establish similar groups.
In the image below, for example, even though all of the
shapes are the same, it’s clear that each column represents a
distinct group:
 contd.

3.Continuity:

The principle of continuity states that elements that are

arranged on a line or curve are perceived to be more
related than elements not on the line or curve.

When sensations appear to create a continuous form,

we tend to perceive them as belonging together.
contd.
 contd.

In the image above, for example, the red dots in the

curved line seem to be more related to the black dots on
the curved line than to the red dots on the straight
horizontal line. That’s because your eye naturally follows a
line or a curve, making continuation a stronger signal of
relatedness than the similarity of color.
 contd.

4. Law of Closure:
When we see an image that has missing parts, our
brain will fill in the blanks and make a complete image
so we can still recognize the pattern.
We tend to fill in missing contours to form a complete
object the tendency to fill in missing contours can be so
strong that we may see faint connections that are not
really there .
 contd.

Closure suggests that we will perceive a complete

circle and rectangle rather than a series of segments.
 contd.

In perception there is the tendency to complete

unfinished object. We tend to ignore gap and complete
contour lines.
 contd.

The closure principle is used often in logo designs at a

variety of companies including IBM and many others.
 contd.

For example, when we look at the image below we most

likely see a zebra even though the image is just a
collection of black shapes. Our mind fills in the missing
information to create a recognizable pattern based on our
experience.
 contd.

5. Texture.
When basic features of stimuli have the same texture
(such as the angle of several elements), we tend to
group those stimuli together.
So we group standing trees together and perceive them
as separate from their fallen neighbors.

Most of surfaces such as walls and roads and a field of

flower in bloom have a texture.
 contd.

6. Simplicity.
The law of simplicity indicates that our mind
perceives everything in its simplest form. We tend to
group features of a stimulus in a way that provides the
simplest interpretation of the world.
contd.
 contd.

7.Common fate
When objects are moving in the same direction at the
same speed, we tend to perceived them as being
together.
So even though individual birds in a flock are separated
from each other in space, they will be perceived as a
group as they fly south.
contd.
 contd.

Stephen Palmer (1999) has introduced three additional

grouping principles:

1. Synchrony
When different stimuli occur at the same time, we are likely
to perceive them as belonging together.

For example, if you see a car up ahead stop violently at the

same instant you hear a crash, you will probably perceive
these visual and auditory stimuli as part of the same event.
 contd.

2. Common region.
When stimulus elements are located within some boundary,
we tend to perceive them as being together.
The boundary can be created by an enclosing perimeter, as
in the following Figure : a region of color; or other factors.
 contd.

3. Connectedness.
When stimulus elements are connected by other
elements, we tend to group them together.
According to the law, the perceptual system has a
tendency to perceive any uniform, connected line or
area as a single unit, so that the array
O-O O-O O-O O-O
tends to be perceived as being composed of four rather
than eight or twelve elements.
Perception of Location and Distance

One of the most important perceptual tasks we face is to

determine where objects and sound sources are located.

This task involves knowing both their two-dimensional

position (left or right, up or down) and their distance from
us.
 contd.

Two-Dimensional Location

Determining whether an object is to our right or our left

appears to be simple.
All the perceptual system has to do, it seems, is determine
where the object’s image falls on the retina.
If the image falls on the center of the retina, then the object
must be straight ahead.
 .
contd

But when an object is far to our right, and we focus its

image on the center of our retina by turning our head
and eyes toward it, we do not assume it is straight
ahead.
According to the computational approach, our brain
calculates an estimate of the object’s location by
combining information about where an image strikes
the retina with information about the movement of our
eyes and head.
 contd.

Localization of sounds depends on cues about differences

in the information received by each of our ears.

Sound waves coming toward the right side of our head

will reach the right ear before reaching the left ear.

Similarly, a sound coming toward the right side of our

head will seem a little bit louder to the right ear than to
the left ear, because our head blocks some of the sound
to the left ear.

The brain uses these slight differences in the timing and

the intensity of a sound as cues to locate its source.
Depth Perception
Depth perception is the ability to perceive distance.
1.Inter position:
One of the most important depth cues is interposition, or
occlusion: Closer objects block the view of things farther away.

2.Relative size:
If two objects are assumed to be about the same size, the object
producing a larger image on the retina is perceived as closer
than the one producing a smaller image
 contd.

3. Height in the visual field:

On the ground, more distant objects are usually
higher in the visual field than those nearby.
 contd.

4.Linear perspective:

The closer together two converging lines are, the greater the
perceived distance. So objects that are nearer the point of
convergence are seen as farther away.
 contd.

5. Reduced clarity:

Increased distance usually produces less clarity, and

this reduced clarity is interpreted as a cue for greater
distance.
Depth Perception
6. Gradient of texture:
An additional depth cue comes from continuous changes
across the visual field, called gradients.
For example, a gradient of texture is a graduated change in
the texture, or “grain,” of the visual field.
 contd.

7. Motion parallax:
A depth cue whereby a difference in the apparent rate
of movement of different objects provides information
about the relative distance of those objects.
 contd.

You may have noticed, for example, that when you look
out the side window of a moving car, objects nearer to
you seem to speed across your visual field, whereas
objects in the distance seem to move slowly, if at all.
This difference in the apparent rate of movement is
called motion parallax, and it provides cues to
differences in the distance of various objects.
Thank you.