SPEAKER 0

Hope everyone is having an amazing Wednesday. So we are starting a new unit today.
You will notice that every time we start a new unit, there is a new announcement on
Avenue. That announcement tells us what we should be reading and what kind of
assessments are going to be associated with each unit. If you ever wanna prepare
ahead, read ahead, know what assessments are coming ahead. That information is also
available under content on that and if you just click the unit, it should show a
classic list of readings and assessments. OK, so we're gonna talk about visual
perception, and in first year psych you may have learned a little bit about like
the rods and cones of it all. We're gonna be skipping all of that in this class.
I'm just focusing on some very basic patterns and shortcuts. We're also gonna touch
on illusions. OK, so first question, what do people see here? What do we see? See
two faces facing each other or a chalice or a chalice, that's a very fancy word.
Um, OK, so we either see two faces facing each other or we see a chalice or a fancy
goblet or maybe even like a fancy little podium type thing. This is an image. This
is not an illusion because our interpretations are not wrong here. So some of us
may say, might be saying, OK, I can look at this in two different ways. That must
be an illusion. No, an illusion is not that. Our interpretations here are not wrong
and therefore it is not an illusion. There is no indication in this image that we
are supposed to look at it in any particular way. In other words, the figure ground
organization is neutral. There is no indication about what should be the figure.
What should be the ground, meaning what should be kind of the surface, the
background, should it be the white or black, and actually serving as the objects
that are supposed to be seen. We could see multiple objects here. We could see a
goblet, or we could see faces. If we're seeing faces, we're likely to see the white
as the background. If we see the goblet, we're gonna see the black as the
background. Either way, our interpretations are not wrong. OK, we're not being
tricked here. This is a neutral image when it comes to the figure ground
organization. This, in other words, is called a reversible image. Some people also
call it an ambiguous image or an ambiguous figure. This is an image that can be
viewed in multiple ways. So one way to create a reversible or ambiguous figure
would be to make a figuregra organization neutral, or to make something else
neutral. So for example, let's look at this cube. There are a few different ways of
observing the cube. I'm assuming that a lot of us are just observing it in one way
so far. We can actually reverse it. So if we pay attention to the little blue X
that is on the corner of the cube, sometimes we view that X as being inside of the
cube. Sometimes we see it as being outside here, where the blue, you see, I'm gonna
grab everything here. The blue square is serving as an as a surface. All right, so
this is sometimes viewed as inside, and sometimes this is viewed as an outside
surface. Hands up if you're able to reverse this view in your vision. Perfect. OK,
so this is another example of a reversible or an ambiguous image. In this case,
it's not the figure ground organization that is neutral, it is the depth
configuration. The depth configuration in this queue is neutral. There is not one
right way of interpreting it, OK? There's not one right way of interpreting it. Can
anyone find the reversible figure in the FedEx logo or name? Um, if you like, look
into the, the export, the DDX part is kind of like an arrow. Yeah, I found this out
one time when I was like 10 years old and I was like mind blown. Um, I'm pretty
sure they did that on purpose. I don't know. Um, it makes sense what they're gonna
be, but here you can see a little arrow. In this case, the figure ground
organization is neutral. Yes, you can obviously see the E and the X as letters as
figures, but we can also see the white part as the figure and the orange part as
the background. So this is also a reverse figure. None of these are illusions
because our interpretations are not wrong. In all, what this tells us is that there
are many ways of viewing the exact same thing. Our perception overall though, is
not neutral. We are going to take in a lot of context of our environment, lighting,
uh, depth perception, we're gonna take in textures, all as clues as to what we
think and believe is true. OK. So here's another example. So here we have a bowl of
fruit, lovely. Um, so we've got a banana coming up the middle, and on both sides of
this we've got a red part here and a red part here called B and B. Hence it
thinking that that those B and E are are of the same app. Yeah, that would be a
fair thing to assume. But do we actually see the rest of the apple? We did not see
the rest of the apples. So what are we, what are we doing? We are interpreting,
right? We are interpreting. We don't actually have any evidence to suggest that the
rest of the apple is in fact behind that banana. We could just have some random red
shapes shaped like this and shaped like this. That could be possibly true when we
view this image. What about the stripes in the background? Do we assume that the
stripes in the background continue, uh, behind the blue jug? Put your hand up and
you assume that the stripes continue behind the blue jug. Yeah, that is a fair
thing to assume, but that's an interpretation. That is not the truth. So when we
are looking at anything, we are making a lot of interpretations and we are making a
lot of assumptions. It could be potentially that there actually is no background at
all behind the guja. Maybe there is just a cutout that is perfectly shaped like the
buja, and the buja just happens to be covering it. That is a possibility, but we
don't really attend to that possibility because it's rather unlikely. We generally
know how the world works and what to come to expect, both based on, um, just basic
instincts, but also based on loads of experience, years and years of experience
understanding how objects work. Um, but we do have to pay attention to this, the
fact that we do have this little bit of interpretation that we always take into
account when we are viewing anything. The stimulus at the end of the day, the
stimulus, the picture here. Provides no guarantee. There's no guarantee that those
two sides of the apple are actually part of one big apple. There's no guarantee
that the strikes continue on the jug. That is our interpretation. Who remembers the
Fred's story that we learned about last week? Fred's story when he was going to the
restaurant and he was lonely, and more hands and he was slogging for dinner and
were asking about whether he'd seen a menu. Fred. In that story, we fill in a lot
of blanks. We are interpreting the information we've heard. Yes, we've heard very
limited information, but we're actually able to make a lot of sense of that story.
In all, our perception goes beyond the information given. OK. In that case, it was
more of a judgment and thinking perception. In this case, it's visual. Our
perception is going beyond the information given. Our brains do this quite
automatically, and in fact, we do see a lot of these principles being exhibited in
really young babies, which suggests that it's not always learned. We have these
automatic shortcuts that we tend to take in order to make very quick investments of
the environment. Around us. These are called Gestalt principles, and there is an
entire field of psychology called Gestalt psychology where Gestalt essentially just
means an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts. Um,
but these are the principles that, uh, we kind of pay attention to when it comes to
vision. First is that we pay attention to the similarity. In this cube, we have
what seems to be two different types of dots. We have red dots and we have yellow
dots. Um, we can kind of see this as two different lines that are kind of put
together into this cube. We will group. Lots of things together based on how
similar they are, not just in color that we're doing here, but also in shape and in
size. OK, so if anything is similar, we do tend to group together, OK? In this case
we are seeing yellow dots, red dots, and as a result, we tend to look at them as
lines rather than as a whole bunch of individual dots. We also rely on proximity.
When things are close to each other, we assume that they are representing kind of a
whole in and of themselves. OK, so in this case, we think that there are 3 groups
of dots rather than, you know, a random 16 or 18 dots, however many there are.
We're perceiving 3 groups, not just a whole bunch of dots. Third, we consider a
continuation, kind of like we talked about with the fruitful example. We would
assume that if an object is found on one side and another, and you can't see the
part in the middle, then it's actually just a continuation of the same object
behind another object. In this case, we see a green rectangle that is interrupted
by this cylinder. Now, instead of assuming that there are two green rectangles on
either side of the cylinder, we are going to automatically assume that it is one
long green reptile re rectangle. That's words at the end of a Wednesday. Um, one
long rectangle that goes behind the cylinder. The fourth is closure. We're going to
perceive in this case an intact triangle rather than random lines. In this case, we
could see, you know, this little, um, like error type line, and we could see this
other kind of line that's got three sides, um. Um, but what's more easy is to say
that that is a triangle with some sort of a white on it. Maybe a rectangle that's
white over the top or maybe just some parts that have been raised. Rather than
making sense of the fact that these lines are kind of weird and kind
of weirdly placed, we are assuming that they are part of, uh, one shade. And then
finally we have the principle of simplicity rather than looking at this shape and
saying, OK, this is some sort of poly that's on a whole bunch of different sides, a
whole bunch of different strange angles. It's not a square, it's not a rectangle,
it's got all of these different sides. Rather than just thinking of this as its own
special shape, we would be more likely to look at it as. Two different rectangles
that are we'd be more likely to look at this one rectangle standing up, one
rectangle that's standing up. Now this is really what is being shown, but that's
not really what we're perceiving. What we're perceiving is two different shapes
that are intersecting rather than one new and special shape that has, you know,
been created. There are so many different examples of Gestalt kind of uh images
that can be considered right here we see that instead of all these like random
shapes, it actually looks like a circle or a sphere with a bunch of spikes on it
where you can see a cube. In these circles rather than these random curved shapes
we're going to see has closure here with this circle we're going to assume that
it's kind of a snake rather than a whole bunch of grams with little eyes. This is
because the patterns we are used to seeing in our environment as well as patterns
that they are. Set up for distinguish, it's very easy to look at shapes like
triangles rather than shapes that have like these curves and have high peeking out
of it, right? Easier to see this triangle here rather than having to process these
very special and unique shapes.

SPEAKER 1
Yeah. Well, I just wanted to ask, uh, so, uh, there's perception things, but, they
are like, like sometimes I feel like I can see the triangle, like the whole
triangle, but with like like with the snake, uh, I, I think that it's a snake, but
I don't actually see the other parts of it. I just wanna know like, it's, uh, are
they all about interpretation or someone like. Things that happened or does the
interpretation happen in different places? I don't know.

SPEAKER 0
Yeah, good question. So, uh, for example, here you're talking about how you don't
actually see the rest of the snake, but you think it is a snake, but it looks like
a snake in some sort of. Water, right? So we are making sense of what we would
expect to see a snake in based on our environment. Here, it looks like we can see a
triangle, but that is just based on the context given. So context here is
everything, but it's always about us adding interpretation and adding more onto the
experience than we are actually given. So it, it does work slightly differently
based on the context, but it's always about adding. Good question. OK. So when we
are interpreting or adding all of these interpretations into whatever we're viewing
or whatever we're perceiving, a lot of the time people would assume, OK, so we're
going to see something, and then we are going to interpret, right? It's like a
pretty linear process. First, we see it, then And we interpret. See it, interpret,
see it, interpret. We assume that one happens before the other. And although this
is technically true, it's not always the case. So I'm going to show you an image
and put your hand up when you see something special about it. What is the
interpretation associated with this image? Uh, I see that. Lift, yeah, good. So you
see some words in the image. Is that what you initially saw? What does he initially
see?

SPEAKER 1
A bunch of random black blos.

SPEAKER 0
Yeah, so initially we saw a bunch of initial, a bunch of random black shapes. Now
in that case, we are seeing and then interpreting, right? That's what the classic
sample is. First we're seeing it and then we're. Interpreting it. But that is not
always how it works. In many cases, the interpretation actually, uh, happens before
we kind of tease apart all of these different parts. So for example, here, what do
we see? The word perception. The word perception. So immediately what did you see?
The word perception. Did we first see a bunch of random shapes and then we
interpret? No, no. Here, in this case, we are not doing it in that logical process.
We're not doing it first seeing and then interpreting. In this case, we're actually
interpreting first and then making sense of, oh, why do I see this word perception
when there is actually not black text on the screen that says perception. What
features are present is going to depend on how the viewer organizes the image. So
sometimes, yes, the viewing of the basic kind of building blocks of the image is
gonna come first, and then we're going to interpret it. But sometimes it's the
opposite. Sometimes the interpretation comes first, and then we kind of see the
building blocks that, that build it. If I gave you this image, what do we think is
happening first? Is it the viewing of the parts, or is it the interpretation?
Interpretation. Interpretation. What do you interpreting? A, a sky with clouds. OK.
um, OK, let me rephrase my question because you're right. Uh, let me rephrase my
question. If I said that there was some sort of pattern in this image, what do we
think we're doing first? Do we think that we're seeing the basic parts, or do we
think that we're interpreting? We're seeing the basic parts first. We're seeing the
basic parts first in this case. So a lot of times people will like kind of look up
at the phone and be like, oh. Dead battery. One sec. Seems like this mic dies every
class. Um, OK, so a lot of times people will see images in clouds. In this
particular place, there's not something obvious that's kind of sticking out here
other than the fact that you're right, it is clouds on the sky. So in this case,
we're actually seeing the basic parts first. And then maybe some of you are
starting to see some images. Spoiler alert, there's no obvious image here. Maybe
you have some sort of interpretation, you see an elephant in the clouds somewhere
there. But what about if I showed you this image? What do we think is happening
first? I'll give you a spoiler, it's probably both at the same time. In this case,
we know it's a cloud quite immediately, but we can also see what. A heart, a heart
quite immediately. So what we're seeing with this example, the heart in the clouds,
is actually probably more like parallel processing, where we are seeing, yes, basic
parts, the fact that it's made up of cloud condensation in the sky, but also
immediately and almost as immediately, we see that it's a heart. So, in general,
when we look at visual input and interpretation, on average, we do see that it
happens at the exact same time. Different brain processes are going to happen at
the same time. Some of that is going to be purely visual, some of that is going to
be the interpretation of that vision. What we're doing is analyze basic features
and understanding the large scale configuration, but at the same time. Parallel
processing is something that happens when it comes to vision and making sense of
what we see. Around us. We are understanding that, yes, these chairs are made of
plastic, but also we are, you know, looking at the grand scheme of things. There's
a bunch of chairs, maybe we're not really caring that they're plastic. OK? A lot of
things are happening at the exact same time. In general, it's important to consider
that neither of these processes have priority, OK? They do work together to reach
an end result, and both are important, but neither technically take priority. And
when we talk about the visual side of things, it's not about the actual seeing.
It's about the understanding basic features that is in, that is happening in tandem
with the larger scale configuration, OK? It's not the actual seeing, it's the
understanding the basic features. OK, so when you're thinking about how a person
views an image or experiences something in their life, um, does that always happen
like, uh, in the same way? For example, if you were to look at something at school
with like all these fluorescent lights and then look at something at home in dim
light, would you likely process that in the exact same way? Maybe not. It's gonna
depend. and it's also gonna depend on the context. Do we process things in the same
way when we are energized versus tired? What's an example of differences in
processing there? Not necessarily just visual language in general. Yeah, processing
is gonna be a lot slower. Uh, think about like studying. If you're studying and you
have like lots of energy and you're like ready to go, it's probably gonna be easier
to take the information and understand the information than if you were really
tired. You might even have a negative bias towards the information if you were
really tired because you'd just be feeling fed up. Not only is it slower, but
you're also going to be looking at it in a more, maybe a little bit more of an
emotional light. We're gonna talk about something that is not visual. It is
auditory, but it is relevant to this idea. The fact that expectations and context
do make a difference when it comes to perception, perceiving things, uh, perceiving
things around us. Just give me one moment. OK. Who has heard that there's satanic
messages in some of our popular music? OK, we are going to look at some of these
satanic messages and see how much we kind of believe in them. OK, so this is Led
Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. Uh, here are the lyrics, and I am going to play this
for you. Hopefully the sound works. Hm. Oh no. Oh, no. Uh. Let's see. OK, I'm gonna
do this next class cause I know for sure it's gonna work in GHG. Um, oh no, I
wanted to show you the satanic messages. OK, it's fine. We'll have to wait. Yeah,
you can see it. OK, um, we'll talk about that, but it's important to consider that
context maps, and we'll talk more about that next class when we learn more about
these satanic messages, um, OK. When we are perceiving things, we tend to, yes,
consider context. Maybe we look at something more negatively if we're tired. Maybe
we look at something and object slightly differently, really good, like even light
when compared to the dull, uh, dull or dim light. Um, but generally, our brains are
pretty good at having, uh, this kind of constant through line that we perceive. So
we perceive constant properties in objects, even when that sensory information
changes with changing circumstances. So what are some examples of constant
properties? Well, if we were to look at objects, we know that for example, a
rectangle. Always a rectangle, even if a door is rectangular, for example, uh, the
way that that rectangle is perceived is slightly different based on its position,
right? So we know what the door generally is. Rectangular, but a door can open,
which means that the rectangle is gonna have slightly different angles. And the
more that the door opens, the more angled that rectangle is going to be. But even
if a door was completely open, we were hardly able to see that it was a rectangle,
we would still know that it was a rectangle, right? We understand that just because
we're seeing it from a different angle, That it's still the same shape, right? It's
still the same shape and we understand that. And in fact, infants understand that.
They know that even though a door opens and changes shape, that it's still the same
object. The same thing can happen with things like texture. The closer we are to an
object, the more we're gonna be able to see the texture. If we look at like the
chair that we're sitting on, we're able to know exactly what texture is. The
farther away from the chair, the less likely you are going to be able to see the
texture of it. But that doesn't mean that the texture changes. That just means
we're having different sensory information being delivered to us based on where we
are in space. A very classic example of this perceptual constancy is size
constancy. So for example, when we see a car that is kind of like right close to
us, we're standing like maybe a couple feet from a car, it takes up a pretty big
portion of our visual field, right? We're looking straight at the car, it's gonna
take up a big portion of our visual field. The representation of that car is taking
up a big part here. Right, the closer we are, the more it suck. If we were to go up
to the car and check it, it might see our entire visual field. It wouldn't be able
to see anything else unless we were to turn our head or look around. So when we're
really close to a car, we understand its size. We understand that it's really big.
We understand that we could possibly get into it. We could climb on top of it, that
it would probably be really heavy. We wouldn't be able to lift it or push it,
right? That's because it's really close to us. Why then, if we see a car drive
away, do we understand that it's still a really big object? That is size constancy,
a specific type of perceptual constancy. In this case, it is taking up a much
smaller portion of our visual field. The farther away it is, the less space taking
up in our racial field. If we did not have We would make the mistake of saying, oh,
because this is such a small thing in my vision, it is actually like a toy, right?
It's a toy. It's so tiny. I can just kind of go like this with it. Um, I can do
that with some of your heads right now, but I know that you're not tiny, tiny
people out there. I know that you're real life-size people
and that you're just far away. So when we are thinking about sizes, it really is
the understanding that no matter how much garbage field the thing takes up, we
still understand the size of it. How do we do that? Well, let me ask you a
question. Um, in this picture, there's a person who's wearing tie-dye. Is the
person who's wearing tie-dye really close or really far away? Hands up, yeah, far
away. How do you know that? Well, I don't know it. I'm assuming based on the fact
that I can see a pop and it looks like they're down to pop. OK, OK, so I'm gonna
assume that the first clue that you had was not necessarily the pack. It's probably
kind of like 2 or 3rd clue, but the first clue is probably that they were really
tiny, right? But when we think that this person who's wearing tie-dye is a child or
an adult? An adult, but if they're really, really tiny, why do we think they're an
adult? Yeah, because of size constancy, we actually take in a lot of context clues,
especially in a situation like this. In this case, we are actually paying attention
to, like you said, the past. We're looking at the depth of the past and how we.
Lines are actually converging. We notice that the path is really wide here, but as
it goes up the image, it gets smaller and smaller. This is giving us some good
clues as to the actual size of the person in tie-dye. What about this person? Is
this person close or far? Hands up if you think they're close. Good job. Do we
think that they're a child or an adult? A child, what kind of clues might we be
using to make that determination? OK. Good. So he is smaller than this person,
right? And that gives us a pretty good, good clue about how tall he is. We might
also be close enough that we're able to see his features and maybe his proportions
and know that that's more childlike than adult-like. Um, but in all we're taking in
the image quite generally, and we're also comparing the people to the size and
width of the trees. OK, so it's not just about the depth or the convergence of
those lines in the path, but we're also paying attention to the size of the trees,
and we're probably also paying attention to the texture of. Of the leaves. We might
notice that the texture is a little bit more easy to see in this part of the image
and maybe a little bit less easy to see the farther the leaves appear. We're using
all of these clues as context to understand the size constancy of the people in
this image. Here's a really great example of using context clues in order to
determine the size constancy. If you were to actually cut out this person. Right,
we have to cut up this person and then place it in this person. This is how small
they would be, um, right, that's kind of crazy. Put your hand up if you think
that's kind of crazy. So wild on a Wednesday. Um, OK, but wait, does this really
look that small in this image? I'm assuming no, right? This doesn't look that small
in this image. What clues are we using in this image? And you OK Carrying it to the
person. Right. So we're looking at a hallway and specifically in this hallway,
we're looking at specific angles, right? So there's angles that are giving us some
clues. What other clues are we looking at? Also So like that's pretty much sitting
beside like a desk and you can see like typically desks are like around their
height and they're usually generally around the same height. So the fact that he's
like a little taller, that is like, oh it's probably about that big compared to
like if you're in the second picture where there's essentially no context. Exactly.
So we've got a desk, and that's a pretty, you know, normal size to the desk. We
also have the fact that we are looking at doors and the closer door is bigger and
at a certain angle the next door you have to opening down here. All of these are
context clues to help. Help us understand how big an object or in this case a
person actually is. We know that this person is not a child just because they're
smaller or they're not an adult just because they're smaller. We can understand it
based on the clues in the image. For example, if, like, let's say we remove all the
cus. And so we keep the people in it, but like, I think so when you say clues
doesn't only mean like the image gives because even if there is nothing else but
just kind of close to people, you kind of would assume that but like that's kind of
like irrational to think that they're she's actually small she's actually big, you
know. You have giving me a perfect segue into the next slide. Check this out Do
they look the same in this image? Same size hands up if you think they're the same
size and it's in. Amazing. Do we have many context clues? No Do we have context
clues here? Yes, we do. And what do we see? What are we, what are we seeing? What's
the difference? Tunnel in or whatever that is, it's kind of like narrowing a little
bit and so it kind of makes the, the monster in the back look a lot bigger. Yeah,
so even though technically when you cut them out of the picture, they literally are
the exact same size. When we are given these context clues, it changes the nature
of the image. It changes the way in which we perceive those, those monsters, OK?
And this is an illusion. We are being tra. Our deep interpretations are wrong, OK,
because technically they are the same. They're the same size, but we are given
clues to make us believe that they are not the same size. Let's look at this
interpretation or this illusion. This is when our interpretations are incorrect.
That is an illusion. Now technically, this and this are the same shape. And in fact
I even copied and pasted this shape. I literally took the lights off this shape. I
and then I tilted it and I it just to show you that it is the same. I know it's
insanely crazy. But that's the same shape. That's an illusion. What kind of context
clues are we using here? What kind of context is raising here? So it makes it Yeah,
so it, it's looking farther back. Why do you think it looks like it's going farther
back? Yeah, it's the legs. It's the legs that is making that look so strange. It is
the exact same shape. I even copied this, put it over here, I took the legs off and
rotate it. It is the exact same shape, but the way that the legs look in this image
versus this image makes it look completely different. This is an illusion. This is
when some sort of context clue makes our perception incorrect. OK, it's incorrect.
We're automatically looking at the angle of the table and making assumptions about
the size constancy, but in this case, we are wrong.

SPEAKER 1
If I took a picture of this classroom, right, and I looked at the picture. Uh, and
I said that all of these people are generally people size. Well, that would be
technically true in real life, but in the picture, that would be false. So in
looking at the picture, would it be an illusion?

SPEAKER 0
Yes, technically, if you were to say who is bigger in this picture, and it looked
different based on all the context clues in the room, that would technically be a.
illusion, but of course, usually we're able to kind of tease that apart, right? So
obviously what I'm seeing now, all of you, some of you are bigger because you're
closer to me, tinier because you're farther, that's not an illusion. But if we were
to say, you know, how big are these people actually if we're to cut them out and
put them on paper, that is an illusion. OK, I am going to end a few minutes early
today because we didn't get to look at our satanic messages, but we are going to
look at them on Friday, I promise.