1. General Psychology

2. Scripture
James 1:9-11
Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

3. Scripture
James 1:8
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

4. Perception

5. What we’ll sense and perceive… in this chapter:
especially vision and hearing
smell, taste, touch, pain, and awareness of body position
How do the sense organs and nervous system handle incoming sensory information?
How does the brain turn sensory information into perceptions?
Why is our style of creating perceptions better at perceiving the real world than at decoding tricky optical illusions?
Click to reveal all bullets.

6. Sensation vs. Perception
“The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.”
“The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.”
The brain receives input from the sensory organs.
The brain makes sense out of the input from sensory organs.
Click to reveal shortened definition; click again to reveal rest of animation.

7. Making sense of the world
Top-down processing:
using models, ideas, and expectations to interpret sensory information
What am I seeing?
Bottom-up processing:
taking sensory information and then assembling and integrating it
Click to reveal definitions for bottom-up and top-down processing.
Is that something I’ve seen before?

8. Bottom-up Processing
Analysis of the stimulus begins with the sense receptors and works up to the level of the brain and mind.
Letter “A” is really a black blotch broken down into features by the brain that we perceive as an “A.”

9. THE CHT Top-Down Processing
Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes as we construct perceptions, drawing on our experience and expectations.
THE CHT

10. Perceptual Illusions

11. Color Constancy
Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color even when changing illumination filters the light reflected by the object.
Color Constancy

12. Smell: The Shortcut Sense
Sensations of smell take a shortcut to the brain, skipping the trip through the “sensory switchboard” (thalamus) made by all the other senses.
Information from the nose goes not only to the temporal lobe but also to the limbic system, influencing memory and emotion.
Smell links lovers, parent and child, and other creatures to each other through chemistry.
Click to reveal bullets.

13. Automatic animation.
Instructor: you can tell students, “This will push your motion sensors into sensory adaptation.
For this to work, you must stare at the white dot in the center and never move your gaze.
When the motion stops, quickly stare at a nearby doorway, window, or a face next to you. Decide now what you will look at.”

14. Perceptual Set
Perceptual set is what we expect to see, which influences what we do see. Perceptual set is an example of top-down processing .
Click to reveal second picture.
Loch Ness monster
or a tree branch?
Flying saucers
or clouds?

15. Perceptual set can be “primed.”
Old woman
Ambiguous
Young woman
Click to reveal second picture.
Instructor: if you used this extra example, you can ask one half the class to focus on the image on the left, the other to look right. Then click and the ambiguous image appears, and the class can raise hands about which of the two images they see, to see if priming influenced their perception.

16. Context Effect on Perception
In which picture does the center dot look larger?
Perception of size depends on context.
The text at the bottom of the screen will appear on click, and is mean to appear only AFTER you do the “spelling” test below.
Instructor: The point of the test is to demonstrate how context, affected/primed by the previous word you stated, can affect which word they perceived.
You can state to students, “Six word spelling test! You cannot ask questions; just take a guess and listen for the next word. Write these words down:
Double. Pear. (Students may, if “double” gives them context, write “pair.”)
Apple. Payor. (Students may, when primed by “apple”, write “pear.”)
Payee. Pair. (Here, students might be confused, or some may write “payor.”)
Spelling test answers:
double pear
apple payor
payee pair
Did context affect which word you wrote?

17. Effect of Emotion, Physical State, and Motivation on Perception
Experiments show that:
destinations seem farther when you’re tired.
a target looks farther when your crossbow is heavier.
a hill looks steeper with a heavy backpack, or after sad music, or when walking alone.
something you desire looks closer.
Click to reveal bullets. After reading the last bullet, click again to zoom the banana split.

18. Color Blindness
People missing red cones or green cones have trouble differentiating red from green, and thus have trouble reading the numbers to the right.
Opponent-process theory refers to the neural process of perceiving white as the opposite of perceiving black; similarly, yellow vs. blue, and red vs. green are opponent processes.
Click to reveal text boxes.
Instructor: you could add, “Some people say that dogs have “black and white” vision. In fact, they are lacking red receptors, so their vision has simpler color perception, dichromatic, not monochromatic.”
Feeling superior to animals? Note that many birds and insects can sense ultraviolet and infrared that you can’t see.

19. Opponent-Process Theory Test
Instructor: Tell the students: “Stare at the center dot for 30 seconds; if you’re doing it well, the flag will start to disappear. If it does, keep staring at the dot.”
Further narration as they stare at the dot: “If opponent-process theory is correct, then fatiguing our perception of one will make a blank slide look like the opposite color… and the opponent processes are white vs. black, red vs. green, and yellow vs. blue.”
Click to make flag disappear.
What do you see?
Question for students: “Besides opponent-process theory, what else are we demonstrating here?”...(sensory adaptation).
After our color receptors for green become fatigued, an empty white background will briefly seem red, just as plain water might taste salty or strange after eating a lot of intensely sweet candy to the point of fatiguing our tongue.
There have been versions of this circulating online in which our receptors get fatigued just by some dots near the center dot, and a B&W picture turns to full color when we look at a blank space.
The dot, the dot, keep staring at the dot in the center…

20. Turning light waves into mental images/movies... Perceptual Organization
We have perceptual processes for enabling us to organize perceived colors and lines into objects:
grouping incomplete parts into gestalt wholes
seeing figures standing out against background
perceiving form, motion, and depth
keeping a sense of shape and color constancy despite changes in visual information
using experience to guide visual interpretation
Click to reveal bullets.
This is a summary slide for this upcoming section, listing the major concepts and not the section headings.

21. The Role of Perception
Our senses take in the blue information on the right. However, our perceptual processes turn this into:
a white paper with blue circle dots, with a cube floating in front.
a white paper with blue circle holes, through which you can see a cube.
a cube sticking out to the top left, or bottom right.
blue dots (what cube?) with angled lines inside.
Click to reveal bullets, BUT before any bullets appear, see how many different visual perceptions students can come up with.
To nudge the discussion, note the little ‘x’ near the center of the picture; ask if it looks like it’s inside a blue hole, or at the back and bottom of a cube that opens up and to the left…

22. Figure-Ground Perception
In most visual scenes, we pick out objects and figures, standing out against a background.
Some art muddles this ability by giving us two equal choices about what is figure and what is “ground”:
Click to reveal bullets and two examples.
Goblet or two faces?
Stepping man, or arrows?

23. Grouping: How We Make Gestalts
“Gestalt” refers to a meaningful pattern/configuration, forming a “whole” that is more than the sum of its parts.
Three of the ways we group visual information into “wholes” are proximity, continuity, and closure.
Click to show a different perspective on each image.
Instructor: perhaps you can get students to bring out the definitions of the concepts in these pictures (as you click to reveal the animations).
“Proximity” means we tend to see objects that are close together as being part of the same object.

24. Which ones influence perception?
Grouping Principles
Which ones influence perception?
Click to show how the impossible dog house was actually built.
What makes our perceptual organization skills turn the structure on the right into… an impossible 3D figure?
Certainly, closure and continuity are part of what makes the boards look like they continue behind other boards and connect in places they really don’t (the board in the background), even though these connections and closures create an image of a house that violates our sense of how things can work in 3D space.

25. Visual Cliff: A Test of Depth Perception
Babies seem to develop this ability at crawling age.
No animation.
Instructor: as a preview of figuring out how we perceive depth, note that the pattern on the floor looks more condensed (and thus farther away) to the infant than the identical pattern on the table. The infant can perceive this difference as depth/height and see a danger of falling.
Note that the ability to perceive glass as solid does not appear to be as innate as the fear of the cliff.
Even newborn animals fear the perceived cliff.

26. Perceiving Depth From a 2D Image: Binocular Methods
Binocular (using both eyes) cues exist because humans have two eyes in the front of our head. This gives us retinal disparity; the two eyes have slightly different views, and the more different the views are, the closer the object must be. In an extreme example, your nose is so close that each eye sees a completely opposite half-view of it.
Click to reveal second text box.
How do we perceive depth from a 2D image?...
by using monocular (needing only one eye) cues

27. Monocular Cue: Interposition
Interposition: When one object appears to block the view of another, we assume that the blocking object is in a position between our eyes and the blocked object.
No animation.

28. Monocular Cue: Relative Size
We intuitively know to interpret familiar objects (of known size) as farther away when they appear smaller.
No animation.

29. Monocular Cues: Linear Perspective and Interposition
The flowers in the distance seem farther away because the rows converge. Our brain reads this as a sign of distance.
No animation.
Instructor: see if students can notice one other monocular cue for depth perception evident in this picture...interposition. The flowers in the very front (bottom of the frame) partially block the view of other flowers, and the whole hill of flowers appears to block the view of the hill in the background.

30. Tricks Using Linear Perspective
These two red lines meet the retina as being the same size
However, our perception of distance affects our perception of length.
Click to bring bottom line up.
The way our brain changes the perception of length in this case is called the Ponzo illusion, first demonstrated by Italian psychologist Mario Ponzo in 1913.
The two [rods/bars/logs] are the same size on screen, but our eyes tend to see one as larger because linear perspective makes its location on the train tracks seem farther away.

31. Monocular Cue: Relative Height
We tend to perceive the higher part of a scene as farther away.
This scene can look like layers of buildings, with the highest part of the picture as the sky.
If we flip the picture, then the black part can seem like night sky… because it is now highest in the picture.
Click to show bullets and example.

32. Monocular Cues: Shading Effects
Shading helps our perception of depth.
Does the middle circle bulge out or curve inward?
How about now?
Click to invert the image and show the hollow as a hill.

33. Light and shadow create depth cues.
No animation.

34. Monocular Cues: Relative Motion
When we are moving, we can tell which objects are farther away because it takes longer to pass them. A picture of a moon on a sign would zip behind us, but the actual moon is too far for us to pass.
No animation.
A great animated example can be found at
This depth perception cue is often referred to as motion parallax. It is used by many animals that don’t have the benefit of binocular cues because their eyes are on the sides of their heads. It is called “relative motion”; when we are moving, the objects we pass can appear to be moving in the opposite direction, and the farther objects don’t move as fast.

35. Motion Perception We perceive motion in many ways.
Objects moving toward us
We perceive this motion by watching the changing apparent size of an object.
Objects moving to one side
We perceive relative motion, although we often judge huge objects inaccurately. In what way? Why?
Objects traveling in a more complex path, such as in an arc through the air coming toward us
Baseball players, and even dogs, can run right to where a fly ball is going to land by keeping the ball in a constant apparent position in the sky.
Click to reveal bullets.
Instructor: an option for introducing this slide is connecting this concept to the relative motion monocular cue. The cues of relative motion that help us see distance can also be used in reverse; if we already know the size and thus the distance of objects, we can more accurately judge motion of ourselves or objects around us.
First bullet: This is the growing/approaching Frisbee effect.
Second bullet: We judge huge objects to be moving more slowly, perhaps because we are ready to judge them as closer, smaller objects covering less distance.

36. Perceptual Constancy
Our ability to see objects as appearing the same even under different lighting conditions, at different distances and angles, is called perceptual constancy. Perceptual constancy is a top-down process.
Examples:
color and brightness constancy
shape and size constancy
No animation.
Instructor: you can use this narrative to tie things together after the definition--“Because this means perceiving sameness even when receiving different sensory information, this means that we use this top-down process to change what colors, shapes, sizes and objects we think we see, depending on the context.”

37. Color Constancy
This ability to see a consistent color in changing illumination helps us see the three sides as all being yellow, because our brain compensates for shading.
As a result, we interpret three same-color blue dots, with shades that are not adjusted for shading, as being of three different colors.
Click to reveal bullets and animate example.

38. Brightness Constancy
On this screen, squares A and B are exactly the same shade of gray.
You can see this when you connect them.
So why does B look lighter?
Click to show image with gray bars to demonstrate.
Click to show image with gray bars connecting the A and B squares.
Hopefully, your students can explain that our brains compensate for shadows and other context by perceiving a constant color shade/brightness even when things are in shadow. This means mentally erasing the shadow to see objects in a lighter shade. This process, plus the checkerboard context, makes B seem lighter to our brain than the images sensed by our eyes.

39. Shape Constancy
Shape constancy refers to the ability to perceive objects as having a constant shape despite receiving different sensory images. This helps us see the door as a rectangle as it opens. Because of this, we may think the red shapes on screen are also rectangles.
No animation.
Instructor: you could ask students an intentionally ambiguous question...“What shapes do you see outlined in red?” If they say “rectangle,” ask again, no longer referring to the doors. “Tell us the names of the red shapes.” Then click to fade the doors and reveal that the second and third red shapes are trapezoids.

40. The Moon Illusion
The moon appears larger on the horizon than overhead.
Why do we perceive the moon as a different size depending on its location?
One possible theory is that our ancestors assumed overhead objects were closer than objects on the horizon.
The moon, like one of these monsters, seems larger because we see it as farther away.
Click to reveal bullets.
Note that there are several other theories about the moon illusion. One has to do with horizon reference objects; maybe on the horizon we compare the moon to a smaller section of sky than when it’s overhead (try looking at a moonset picture that is NOT zoomed in).

41. Size Constancy
We have an ability to use distance-related context cues to help us see objects as the same size even if the image on the retina becomes smaller.
The Ames room was invented by American ophthalmologist Adelbert Ames, Jr. in 1934.
The Ames room was designed to manipulate distance cues to make two same-sized girls appear very different in size.
Click to reveal bullets and to show explanation.

42. Perceptual Adaptation
After our sensory information is distorted, such as by a new pair of glasses or by delayed audio on a television, humans may at first be disoriented but can learn to adjust and function.
This man could learn eventually to fly an airplane wearing these unusual goggles, but here, at first, he is disoriented by having his world turned upside down.
Click to reveal bullets.

43. Embodied Cognition
It’s no coincidence that we use sensation words to describe feelings. Studies seem to show that:
holding a warm mug promotes social warmth.
social rejection looks like pain reception in the brain.
words on a heavy clipboard seem… weighty.
being ignored (cold shoulder) makes a room seem colder.
leaning left physically  leaning left politically.
in a foul smelling room, people were more likely to suspect bad intentions (foul play) by others.
Click to reveal bullets and definition.
Embodied cognition refers to the effect of body experience on feelings, attitudes, thoughts, and judgments.

44. Smell: The Shortcut Sense
Sensations of smell take a shortcut to the brain, skipping the trip through the “sensory switchboard” (thalamus) made by all the other senses.
Information from the nose goes not only to the temporal lobe but also to the limbic system, influencing memory and emotion.
Smell links lovers, parent and child, and other creatures to each other through chemistry.
Click to reveal bullets.

45. Sensing Body Position and Movement
Kinesthesis (“movement feeling”) refers to sensing the movement and position of individual body parts relative to each other.
How it works: sensors in the joints and muscles send signals that coordinate with signals from the skin, eyes, and ears
Without kinesthesis, we would need to watch our limbs constantly to coordinate movement.
Click to reveal bullets.

46. Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
Extrasensory Perception (ESP) can defined, literally, as perception without sensation. However, this definition would also include dreams and hallucinations (both of which involve perception without sensation).
Believers in ESP think that it involves getting accurate information directly to the mind, skipping the known senses.
Types of ESP include:
telepathy (“reading” messages from other minds).
clairvoyance (“seeing” remote events).
precognition (“knowing” the future).
The evidence for ESP is anecdotal and controversial; people seem to notice times when predictions come true and perceptions match reality, but tend to disregard the times when they do not.
Click to reveal bullets.
Instructor: The final point on the slide links to two concepts from elsewhere in this course--falsely perceiving order in random events, and the availability heuristic.

47. Original artwork by James Tittle !
This demo is taken from Gray 3e and can be viewed in a way that produces
a black square BEHIND the white
The viewer must cross eyes so that the left eye is looking at the right square and the right looking at the left.
Try ‘fixating’ on an imaginary point in front of the viewing screen at which point you will see three squares- left center and right. The center one will be the stereo image

48. Original artwork by James Tittle !
This demo is taken from Gray 3e and can be viewed in a way that produces
a black square BEHIND the white
The viewer must cross eyes so that the left eye is looking at the right square and the right looking at the left.
Try ‘fixating’ on an imaginary point in front of the viewing screen at which point you will see three squares- left center and right. The center one will be the stereo image