How Do We Construct the Outside World? Sensation – detecting physical energy from the environment and encoding it as neural signals Perception – the process of selecting, organising and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events. SENSATION  PERCEPTION = MEANING

Selective Attention At any moment, our awareness focuses (like a flashlight beam in the dark) on a limited aspect of all that we experience. Some researchers believe that ever second our five senses take in 11,000,000 bits of information (while we are conscious of 40 of them)

Inattentional Blindness Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

Psychology and Optical Illusions Psychologists LOVE visual illusions, because they reflect visions preeminence among our senses Fun Fact: When vision competes with one of our other senses vision usually wins (this is called visual capture)

Perceptual Consistency Perceiving objects as unchanging (e.g., having consistent lightness, colour, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change

Are the lines straight or bent?

Colour Consistency Colour Perception

http://listverse.com/2007/09/16/20-amazing-optical-illusions/

Size – Distance Relationship

Shape Constancies Ebbinghaus Illusion - In the best-known version of the illusion, two circles of identical size are placed near to each other and one is surrounded by large circles while the other is surrounded by small circles; the first central circle then appears smaller than the second central circle.

Lightness Constancy http://psylux.psych.tu-dresden.de/i1/kaw/diverses%20Material/www.illusionworks.com/html/shadow.html

Perceptual Set Our experiences assumptions and expectations may give us a mental predisposition that greatly influences what we perceive

Movement?

Multistable Perception

Count the Fs +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE- SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIF- IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Try Reading This Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Sound Illusions Falling Bells Drum Beat Phantom Voices? McGurk Effect Can You Hear This?