Perception

Basic Methods

Bas Rokers
Psychology, Center for Brain and Health
New York University Abu Dhabi
 Outline

• The philosophy behind our approach to

perception

• What problems does perception solve?

• How do we test perceptual mechanisms?

 Philosophy

• What philosophical perspectives inform our

understanding and study of perception?
 What is Perception?
stuff in the world
 What is Perception?
stuff in the world
percepts

process for:
• extracting information via the senses
Philosophy of Mind

Q: what is the relationship between “things in the

world” and “representations in our heads”?
 1. Naive Realism (or “common sense realism”)
• We perceive the world “as it is”
• Our minds have direct access to reality

exact map
external of reality
reality
#theDress
 2. Idealism
• The only reality is that of mind / ideas
• There is no evidence for / reason to believe in an
external world

reality

?
René Descartes (1596–1650)

“Meditations On First Philosophy”,

1641

• Descartes undertook a program

of “radical skepticism”: decided
to discard any idea that can be
doubted

• senses can be fooled

• all sense data could be caused by an “evil demon”
• concluded that the only thing he could be certain of was
that he existed. (“cogito ergo sum” = “I think, therefore I am”)
2. Idealism

Descartes’ supposition:
reality

evil
demon
Modern variants:

• Brain in a vat
Note: idealism is not testable or disprovable!

• science can’t “prove” that the external world exists

• or that we have any kind of access to it

We need some pragmatic assumptions to get started:

• there is an external world
• we have (indirect) access to it via our senses
3. Representative Realism

• We perceive the external world indirectly &

imperfectly, via intermediary “sense data”

interpretation
external of reality
reality

sense data

processing
Final issue: what kind of “stuff” is there in the world?

Descartes: “Dualism” - there are two kinds of stuff

- mental stuff (non-spatial, non-physical)
- physical stuff (possesses no mental properties)

Problem: how can the physical and mental stuff

interact?
• Q: what kind of stuff is there in the world?

Answer #1: Dualism

• there are two kinds of stuff
• usually: “mind” and “matter”

Answer #2: Monism

• there is only one kind of stuff

materialism idealism
(physical stuff) (mental stuff)
 Modern versions of dualism

“homunculus” - little man

The person who sits inside

our head and is responsible for
“perceiving” what we see.

Prevalent conception, even in neuroscience today.

 Alternative theory: “Monism” - only one kind of stuff

Speci cally: “Materialism” - physical matter and

energy is all that exists

- challenge is to come up with a story that explains

how physical stuff can have “mental” properties
(consciousness, awareness, qualia, etc)
fi
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Functionalism:
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What is this?
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your brain!
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 “Solving” perception would mean building an
algorithm that (using just the numbers) could
answer any question about the image that we
can imagine
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• who is this?
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• what’s his facial expression?

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• what is he wearing?
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• how stylish is that moustache?

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Philosophical position of this course:

• Empiricism - knowledge from senses

• Representative Realism - indirect knowledge of
world, via the senses
• Materialism - only one kind of stuff (matter)
• Functionalism - understanding the “function” of
the sensory systems is all that we need to know to
“understand” them.
In this course, “understanding” perception means:

1. We can write down a procedure for how a

perceptual task is performed
(i.e., we could use it to design a robot to perform the same task)

2. Knowing where and how the procedure is

implemented in the nervous system.
Next:

“why naive realism is

wrong”
or
“why perception is cool”
Comparison patch
Comparison patch
 “Argument from Illusion”
• The fact that we are sometimes
mistaken in our sensory perceptions
indicates that we do not directly perceive
the world
• (Naive realism is false!)
Counting test
Change blindness
 Summary

• Philosophy: What does representative realism

mean? What are some of the alternatives?

• Perception: What is the act of perception?

• Basic Methods

• How do we go about testing how perception

does (and does not) work?
Basic Methods
 Outline

• Methodological approaches: Psychophysics

• Weber-Fechner Law

• Signal Detection Theory

• Neurons and Synapses

 The Dawn of Psychophysics

Gustav Fechner (1801–1887) often

considered founder of
experimental psychology

psychophysics

mind matter

• scienti c theory of the relationship between mind and matter

fi
Fechner’s law
The Dawn of Psychophysics
Ernst Weber (1795–1878)
“Weber’s Law”
• Law about how stimulus intensity relates
to detectability of stimulus changes
• As stimulus intensity increases,
magnitude of change must increase
proportionately to remain noticeable

Example:
if a 1 pound change in a 20 pound weight = .05
is just detectable, then so is
0.2 pound change in a 4 pound weight = .05
The Dawn of Psychophysics
Ernst Weber (1795–1878)
Weber Fraction
• ratio of change magnitude to stimulus
magnitude that is required for detecting
the change

change in stimulus

stimulus intensity

5 = .05
= .05
Q: what’s the smallest 100
change in a 100 pound
weight you could detect? = .05
The Dawn of Psychophysics
Ernst Weber (1795–1878)
Weber Fraction
• ratio of change magnitude to stimulus
magnitude that is required for detecting
the change

Just-Noticeable Difference (JND)

• smallest magnitude change that can
be detected

= .05
Q: what’s the smallest
change in a 100 pound
weight you could detect? = .05
Stephen’s Power Law
Test yourself: at which intensity are changes most detectable?

A B C
For this stimulus/sensation relationship, which stimulus changes are most
detectable?

A B C
How to measure perception?
müller-lyer illusion
perception - alan stocker © 2009
 “percept”

“percept” is internal

perception - alan stocker © 2009

 f (x)
x

blabla

perception - alan stocker © 2009

Psychophysics

• detection (yes/no)
• discrimination (e.g., bigger than)
• estimation (report the stimulus exactly)

All provide indirect measure of internal mental state!

Detection
perfect threshold
Detection
perfect threshold noise
Psychometric function
Method of constant stimuli
 Method of limits

sweep low to high

Method of adjustment

“adjust until you can just barely see it”

Signal detection theory: A psychophysical theory that
quantifies the response of an observer to the
presentation of a signal in the presence of noise

Presentation of signal ->

Noise!
Sensory stimulation ->

Noise!
Perceptual interpretation ->

Noise!
Observer’s response

[Link]
 For next week:
Read Chapter 2

Of ce Hours:
Monday 11 am - noon
A2-107
fi
Figure 1.16 Detecting a stimulus using the signal detection theory (SDT) approach (Part 1)

Number of Instances

Neural activation (spikes)

Figure 1.16 Detecting a stimulus using the signal detection theory (SDT) approach (Part 1)

Number of Instances

Neural activation (spikes)

Figure 1.16 Detecting a stimulus using the signal detection theory (SDT) approach (Part 1)

Number of Instances

Neural activation (spikes)

Figure 1.16 Detecting a stimulus using the signal detection theory (SDT) approach (Part 1)

Neural activation (spikes) Neural activation (spikes)

Neural activation (spikes)

Figure 1.16 Detecting a stimulus using the signal detection theory (SDT) approach (Part 2)

Neural activation (spikes) Neural activation (spikes)

Figure 1.17 Sensitivity to a stimulus: The separation between the distributions of response to noise
alone and to signal plus noise

Neural activation (spikes) Neural activation (spikes)

Neural activation (spikes)

Figure 1.18 For a fixed d , all you can do is change the pattern of your errors by shifting the
response criterion

Neural activation (spikes) Neural activation (spikes)

Neural activation (spikes)

′
Signal detection theory

 Hit: Stimulus is presented and observer responds

“Yes”
 Miss: Stimulus is presented and observer
responds “No”
 False alarm: Stimulus is not presented and
observer responds “Yes”
 Correct rejection: Stimulus is not presented and
observer responds “No”
Signal Detection Theory Terms to know:

“noise” distribution: values arising when stimulus not

present

“signal” distribution: values arising when signal +

noise present

Type I error: rate of “false alarms”, or false positives

Type II error: rate of “misses”, or false negatives

psychometric function: describes probability of saying

“I heard it” as function of stimulus intensity
Thresholds and the Dawn of Psychophysics

• Joseph Fourier (1768–1830) developed another

useful tool for analyzing signals
 Fourier analysis: A mathematical procedure by
which any signal can be separated into
component sine waves at different frequencies.
Combining these component sine waves will
reproduce the original signal
Thresholds and the Dawn of Psychophysics

• Even something as complicated and artificial as a

square wave can be reproduced by adding the
correct sine waves together
Figure 1.18 Spatial frequency
 For next week:
Read Chapter 2

Of ce Hours:
Monday 11 am - noon
A2-107
fi
Brief Neuroscience Intro:
perception - alan stocker © 2009
 neuron
dendrites of target
axons of sensory
neurons
receptor neurons

perception - alan stocker © 2009

spikes - currency of the
nervous system
depolarization: Na+
enters
action potential!
repolarization: K+
flows out
hodgkin and huxley

perception - alan stocker © 2009

spike propagation

perception - alan stocker © 2009

synapse
action potential
triggers release of
vesicles
transmitter
molecules bind to
receptor
post-synaptic
electrical signal

perception - alan stocker © 2009

 Measuring neural activity

• Invasive methods
- electrophysiology (electrodes)
- imaging (voltage sensitive dyes)

• Non-invasive methods
- fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging)
- EEG (electroencephalography)
- MEG (magnetoencephalography)