JND or a just noticeable difference Refers to the smallest increase or decrease in the intensity of a stimulus that a person is able to detect
Weber's law States that the increase in intensity of a stimulus needed to produce a just noticeable difference grows in proportion to the intensity of the initial stimulus
Sensation 1st awareness of some outside stimulus
- activates sensory receptors, which in turn produce electrical signals that's are tranformed by the brain into meaningless bits of information
Perception Experience we have after our brain assembles and combines thousands of indiviudal, meaningless sensations into a meaningful pattern or image
- rarely exact replicas of the original stimuli
- perceptions usually changed, biased, colored, or distorted by our unique set of experiences
- perceptions are out personal interpretations or the real world
Structuralists Believed that you add together hundreds of basi elements to form complex perceptions
- also believed that you could work backward to break down perceptions into small and smaller units, or elements
Gestalt psychologists Believe that our brain follow a set of rules that specify how individual elements are to be organized into a meaning pattern or perception
Rules of organization Identified by gestalt psychologists
- specify how our brains combine and organize individual pieces or elements into a meaningful perception
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
Closure rule Tend to fill in any missing parts of a figure and see the figure as complete
Proximity rule We group together objects that are physically close to one another
Simplicity rule Stimuli are organized in the simplest way possible
Continuity rule In organizing stimuli, tend tot favor smooth or continuos paths when interpreting a series of points or linea
Size constancy Refers to out tendency to perceive objects as remaining the same size even when their image on the retina are continually growing or shrinking
Shape constancy Refers to the tendency to perceive aobject as retaining it's same shape even though when you view it from different angles, it's shape is continually changing it's image on the retina
Brightness constancy Refers to the tendency to perceiving brightness as remaining the same in changing illumination
Color constancy Refers to the tendency to perceive colors as remaining stable despite differences in lighting