Amity Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences
Module III: Perceptual Learning
Dr Deepa Pandey
What is Perception ?
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Perception is the process by which the brain interprets
sensory information, turning it into meaningful
representations of the external world. Through perception,
the brain attempts to make sense of the mass of sensory
stimuli that impinge on our sensory organs.
What is Perception?
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A perceptual set refers to a predisposition to
perceive things in a certain way.
In other words, we often tend to notice only
certain aspects of an object or situation while
ignoring other details.
The process by which the brain integrates,
organizes, and interprets sensory impressions
to create representations of the world.
What is Perception?
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Perception is the act of interpreting a stimulus generated in
the brain by one or more sense mechanism.
All the processes involved in creating meaningful patterns
out of a jumble of sensory impressions fall under the
general category of perception”—Charles Jorris.
Perception is the organizing process by which we interpret
our sensory input”—Edmund Fantino.
Perception is the first event in the chain which leads from
the stimulus to action”—Boring EG.
Characteristics
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[Link] is meaningful
[Link] is selective
[Link] past experience determines the nature of
perception.
[Link] is a synthetic activity.
[Link] is analysis also in perception.
[Link] the aspects of analysis and synthesis occur at
the same time.
Stages of Perception
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This section will explain in detail the stages involved in perception as
well as the factors affecting these stages.
Stage I: Selection The first stage of perception is
“selection”. Since our brain has limited capacity, therefore,
it cannot attend to all stimuli. We unconsciously or
consciously select some stimuli and ignore others.
Stages of Perception
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Stage II: Organization In this stage, stimuli are arranged
mentally in a meaningful pattern. This process occurs
unconsciously. Many principles (the Gestalt principles of
organisation) have been proposed to explain the process of
organization.
Stage III: Interpretation In this last stage, meaning is
assigned to the organized stimuli. Interpretation of the
stimuli is based on one’s experiences, expectations, needs,
beliefs and other factors. Thus, this stage is SUBJECTIVE
in nature and the same stimuli can be interpreted differently
by different individuals.
Theoretical Approaches to Perception
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Two separate theoretical approaches have been
proposed by psychologists to explain the process
of perception is known as-
1. Top-down processing approach
2. Bottom-up processing approach
Theoretical Approaches to Perception
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Theoretical Amity
Approaches to Perception
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[Link]-down processing– Pioneer –Richard
Gregory; Process of perception is direct;
Perception is a data driven process i.e., stimuli
carries sufficient information to be interpreted
meaningfully and we don’t need to rely on our
experiences.
[Link]-up processing approach– Pioneer – J. J.
Gibson; Process of perception is indirect; Perception
is an experience driven process i.e., stimuli don’t have
sufficient information to be interpreted meaningfully and
therefore, we need to rely on our experiences.
Theoretical Approaches to Perception
Amity Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences
Factors Influencing Perception
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1. Perceptual Constancy
It is possible on account of our previous
experience, knowledge and familiarity with a
particular sensory stimuli, we tend to have a
stable, regular and consistent perception of
that particular stimulus despite the significant
change introduced in terms of sensory
impression.
There are a number of different types of
perceptual constancy like shape constancy,
size constancy, colour constancy, brightness
constancy etc.
Factors Influencing Perception
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2. Mental set
Set refers to preparedness or readiness to
receive some sensory input. Such expectancy
keeps the individual prepared with good
attention and concentration.
For example, when we are expecting the
arrival of a train, we listen to its horn or sound
even if there is a lot of noise disturbance.
Factors Influencing Perception
Amity Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences
3. Motives and needs
Our motives and needs will definitely influence
our perception. For example, a hungry person
is motivated to recognize only the food items
among other articles. His attention cannot be
directed towards other things until his motive
is satisfied.
Factors Influencing Perception
Amity Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences
4. Cognitive styles
People are said to differ in the ways they characteristically
process the information. Every individual will have his or
her own way of understanding the situation. It is said that
the people who are flexible will have good attention and
they are less affected by interfering influences and to be less
dominated by internal needs and motives than or people at
the constricted end.
Factors Influencing Perception
Amity Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences
4. Cognitive styles
People are said to differ in the ways they characteristically
process the information. Every individual will have his or
her own way of understanding the situation. It is said that
the people who are flexible will have good attention and
they are less affected by interfering influences and to be less
dominated by internal needs and motives than or people at
the constricted end.
The Gestalt Principles
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In the early 20th century, three German
psychologists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang
Köhler and Kurt Koffka proposed new
principles for explaining perception called as
Gestalt principle.
According to these psychologists, the
process of perception does not involve
perceiving an array of stimuli as an object
but it involves our tendency to seek a form
or pattern in it.
The Gestalt Principles
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Gestalt psychologists looks at the way that our mind
recognizes forms and patterns .The six Gestalt principles or
laws, which are:
[Link] of similarity
[Link] of proximity
[Link] of continuity
[Link] of closure
[Link] of common region
[Link] of pragnanz
The Gestalt Principles
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Law of Similarity
This principle states that stimuli similar to each
other are grouped together.
The Gestalt Principles
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Law of Similarity
For instance, in the Figure, we tend to group circles
based on its colors. In real life also, we use this
principle extensively. For example, during a cricket
match, we tend to group players based on the colour
of their jersey.
The Gestalt Principles
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Law of proximity
According to the law of proximity, things
that are close together seem more
related than things that are spaced
farther apart.
The Gestalt Principles
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Law of proximity
The Gestalt Principles of Design
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Law of continuity
According to the law of proximity, things
that are close together seem more
related than things that are spaced
farther apart.
The law of continuity holds that points that
are connected by straight or curving lines are
seen in a way that follows the smoothest path.
In other words, elements in a line or curve
seem more related to one another than those
positioned randomly.
The Gestalt Principles
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The Gestalt Principles
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Law of closure
According to the law of closure, we
perceive elements as belonging to the
same group if they seem to complete
some entity.
Our brains often ignore contradictory
information and fill in gaps in information.
The Gestalt Principles of Design
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Law of closure
The Gestalt Principles of Design
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Law of common region The Gestalt law of
common region says that when elements are located
in the same closed region, we perceive them as
belonging to the same group
The Gestalt Principles of Design
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Law of Pragnanz (Good Figure, Law of Simplicity)
All of the principles of grouping speak to the Law of
Prägnanz. (This is also known as the Law of Good
Gestalt.) Prägnanz is also a German word. It translates
to “pithiness,” or “orderliness.” This law suggests that
the mind looks for orderliness or simplicity when
looking at images. It’s more simple to see one whole
image rather than the sum of its parts. That’s why, when
we look at an image of a book, we see one item. We don’t see an item
with a cover, back cover, and over 100 individual pages.
The Gestalt Principles of Design
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Law of Pragnanz (Good Figure, Law of Simplicity)
People will perceive and interpret ambiguous or
complex images as the simplest form possible.
The shape at right is ambiguous and complex
taken as a whole.
The Gestalt Principles of Design
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What is Perceptual learning ?
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Perceptual learning, process by which
the ability of sensory systems to respond
to stimuli is improved through
experience. Perceptual learning occurs
through sensory interaction with the
environment as well as through practice
in performing specific sensory tasks.
What is Perceptual learning ?
Amity Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences
The changes that take place in sensory
and perceptual systems as a result of
perceptual learning occur at the levels of
behaviour and physiology.
Examples of perceptual learning include
developing an ability to distinguish
between different odours or musical
pitches and an ability to discriminate
between different shades of colours.
What is Perceptual learning ?
Amity Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences
• These changes are permanent or semi-permanent,
as distinct from shorter-term mechanisms like
sensory adaptation or habituation.
• Moreover, these changes are not merely incidental
but rather adaptive and therefore confer benefits,
like improved sensitivity to weak or ambiguous
stimuli.
Defining Perceptual Learning
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“Perceptual Learning” refers, roughly, to long-
lasting changes in perception that result from
practice or experience (see E.J. Gibson 1963).
Gibson’s definition has three basic parts. First,
perceptual learning is long-lasting. Second,
it is perceptual. Third, it is the result of
practice or experience.
Perceptual Learning As Long-Term Perceptual Changes
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In the waterfall illusion, for instance, a person who looks at
a waterfall for a minute, and then looks away at some rocks,
sees the rocks as moving even though they are not. This is a
short-term change in perception, lasting perhaps for fifteen
to thirty seconds.
Since it is not a long-term change in perception,
however, it does not count as perceptual learning. In
another short term adaptive change, a person who goes
indoors after walking through a blizzard may have trouble
as her eyes adjust to the new lighting. There is a change in
her perception as a result of her experience in the
blizzard. But it is not a long-term change, and so it does
not count as perceptual learning.
Perceptual Learning as Long-Term Perceptual
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Changes
In order to determine whether the case is a
genuine case of perceptual learning, it may be
necessary to look at the mechanisms involved. If
the mechanisms involved are characteristic of other
cases of perceptual learning, then that is a reason to
count the case as an instance of perceptual learning.
If the mechanisms involved are uncharacteristic of
perceptual learning, then that is a reason not to count
the case as an instance of perceptual learning.
Perceptual Learning as Perceptual Changes
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The fact that perceptual learning involves changes in
perception also rules out mere changes in belief. Suppose
someone acquires the belief that the symphony movement
they are hearing is a scherzo. If nothing changes in that
person’s perception, this is not a case of perceptual learning.
It is a change in the person’s belief, not a change in the
person’s perception.
It is important here to distinguish perceptual learning from
learning that is simply based on perception. Perceptual
learning involves changes in perception, while learning that
is based on perception need not.
Perceptual Learning as Perceptual Changes
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One of the main reasons for holding that improvements in
perceptual discrimination can be genuinely perceptual is due
to somewhat recent evidence from neuroscience. As
Manfred Fahle puts it, during the 1970s and 1980s,
Perceptual Learning as Perceptual Changes
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it tended to be the case that improvements in perceptual
discrimination were thought to be cognitive rather than
perceptual (2002: xii). However, during the 1990s, pressure
was put on the cognitive interpretation due to new
neuroscientific evidence in perceptual learning studies. In
particular, studies found that learning-induced plasticity
occurs in the adult primary sensory cortices much more than
researchers had previously thought (Fahle 2002: xii).
Neurological evidence of plasticity in adult primary sensory
cortices due to learning provides some evidence that
changes in perceptual discrimination can be due to
perceptual learning
Perceptual Learning as Resulting from Practice or
Experience Amity Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences
To be authentic cases of learning, perceptual
changes have to be the result of a learning process.
As a contrast case, suppose someone undergoes a
long-term change in their perception due to a brain
lesion. Such a change in perception does not result
from a learning process, since the change in
perception comes from the lesion, rather from
practice or experience. Because of this, the case does
not count as an instance of perceptual learning, even
though it involves a long-term change in perception.
Potential FurtherAmity
Criteria for Defining Perceptual
Learning
Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences
Perceptual learning involves relatively long-lasting
changes to an organism’s perceptual system that
improve its ability to respond to its environment and
are caused by this environment.\
Goldstone’s account admits of two different
interpretations.
On one interpretation: The idea then is that each
genuine instance of perceptual learning leads to
success for the organism, namely, it improves the
organism’s ability to respond to the environment.
Potential FurtherAmity
Criteria for Defining Perceptual
Learning
Institute of Behavioural & Allied Sciences
On a second interpretation of Goldstone’s account,
however, it is not that each instance of perceptual
learning has to improve an organism’s ability to
respond to the environment. Rather, it is that
perceptual learning is a general capacity for
improving an organism’s ability to respond to the
environment, even if perceptual learning fails to do so
in some instances.
Contrast Classes
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• Perceptual Development
• Perception-Based Skills
• Cognitive Penetration
• Machine Learning
Varieties Amity
of Perceptual Learning
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1. Differentiation
2. Unitization
3. Attentional Weighting
4. Stimulus Imprinting
Perceptual constancy
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It is possible on account of our previous experience,
knowledge and familiarity with a particular sensory
stimuli, we tend to have a stable, regular and
consistent perception of that particular stimulus
despite the significant change introduced in terms of
sensory impression.
The tendency to perceive the size, shape, color, and
brightness of an object as remaining the same even
when the image it casts on the retina changes.
There are a number of different types of
perceptual constancy like shape constancy,
size constancy, Space constancy, Movement
constancy.
Perceptual constancy
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The study of perceptual learning developed rapidly in the
second half of the 19th century and still more rapidly during
the 20th.
This special field within psychology concentrates on the
factors contributing to the perceived organization of objects
in space (e.g., on cues to depth perception, movement,
form, colour, and their interactions) or dwells on
particularly interesting special problems such as that
of amodal perception (e.g., the question of how one
perceives that there are six sides to a cube, even though
only three of them can be seen at a single time).
Perceptual constancy
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Space Perception, process through which
humans and other organisms become aware of
the relative positions of their own bodies and
objects around them.
Space perception provides cues, such as depth
and distance, that are important for movement
and orientation to the environment.
Perceptual constancy
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Space Perception
Human beings have been interested in the
perception of objects in space at least since
antiquity.
Perceptual constancy
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Space Perception
It was popularly thought in
ancient Greece that objects could be
seen because they emitted what was
imagined to be a continuous series of
extremely thin “membranes” in their
own image; these fell upon the eye and
merged into the picture that was
perceived.
Perceptual constancy
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Space Perception
Centuries of experimental research led
to a more tenable conception in which
space was described in terms of three
dimensions or planes:
Height (vertical plane),
Width (horizontal plane), and
Depth (sagittal plane).
Perceptual constancy
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Space Perception
These planes all intersect at right angles,
and their single axis of intersection is
defined as being located within
perceived three-dimensional space—that
is, in the “eye” of the perceiving
individual.
Perceptual constancy
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Shape constancy
Shape constancy is the ability to see an object as
staying the same shape, even when it is moved to a
different location. This is important because if we
didn’t have this ability, then everything would look
different depending on where we were standing. For
example, if you looked at a circle and then looked
away, and then back at the circle again, it would
look like it had changed shape. However, with
shape constancy, the circle will always look like a
circle, no matter where you are standing.
Perceptual constancy
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Perceptual constancy
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Movement perception
It is the process of inferring the speed and direction
of objects that move in a visual scene given some
visual input. This perception is a scene based
on visual, vestibular and proprioceptive (is the sense that
lets us perceive the location, movement, and action of parts of the body.)
inputs. Although this process appears
straightforward to most observers, it has proven to
be a difficult problem from a computational
perspective, and extraordinarily difficult to explain
in terms of neural processing.
Perceptual constancy : Movement Perception
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Constancy of real motion perception:
Independent of the real motion of the image across the
retina, perception depends upon the motion relative to the
background of the image.
• Brain Comparator and Real motion Perception:
The brain comparator is the system which compares
information about the muscle movements with the
information about the movement of retinal image.
• Apparent Motion: Movement perceived in the absence
of physical movement of an image across the retina.
• Stroboscopic Motion
• Induced movement
Movement Perception: Examples
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Constancy of real motion perception:.
We watch the leaves of the trees bend back and forth in the wind. We
watch the ducks swim across the pond
Brain Comparator and Real motion Perception:
Movement Perception: Examples
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• Apparent Motion: When lights flash at a certain speed they
tend to present illusions of motion.
1. Stroboscopic Motion
An example of stroboscopic motion is the wheel
of a car. When a car is running forward, it seems
like the wheel of a car is moving backward if
you observe the wheel in film.
Movement Perception: Examples
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Apparent Motion:
2. Induced movement
the moon that seems to sail along
behind moving clouds.
Implicit perceptions
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Implicit perceptions involve not only how people
see each other, but also how they see themselves.
This means that our image of ourselves is
constructed from what others see of us rather than
our own views.
Implicit cognition refers to perceptual, memory,
comprehension, and performance processes that occur
through unconscious awareness. For example, when a
patient is discharged after surgery, the effects of the
anesthesia can cause abnormal behaviors without any
conscious awareness.