AP®︎ Psychology: Topic 2.1 Flashcards

The process by which the brain organizes and interprets sensory information as meaningful objects, events, and relationships

Perception that begins with sensory stimulation and builds elementary features into a complete representation

The use of prior knowledge, expectations, experiences, and context to interpret sensory information

An organized mental framework for understanding a category, situation, person, object, or event

A readiness or predisposition to perceive a stimulus in a particular way

The approach emphasizing that perception organizes sensations into meaningful wholes rather than separate parts

The tendency to perceive an incomplete figure as complete by filling in missing boundaries

The organization of a visual field into an attended figure and the background against which it appears

The tendency to group elements that are near one another

The tendency to group elements that share visual characteristics such as shape, color, size, or orientation

The focusing of awareness on selected stimuli or features

Concentrating awareness on one stimulus or task while other available information receives less processing

The tendency for personally significant information, such as one’s name, to capture attention outside the current focus

Failure to perceive an environmental change because attention is elsewhere or viewing continuity is interrupted

The ability to perceive distance and three-dimensional relationships

Depth information that depends on input from both eyes

The difference between the images projected onto the two retinas, with greater disparity generally indicating a nearer object

The inward turning of the eyes when focusing on a nearby object, with greater turning signaling a closer object

Depth information available to either eye alone that can also create depth on flat surfaces

The tendency to perceive clearer, sharper objects as nearer and hazier objects as farther away

When objects are assumed to have similar actual sizes, the one producing the smaller retinal image is perceived as farther away

The gradual change from coarse, detailed nearby texture to finer, denser, less distinct distant texture

The tendency for parallel lines to appear to converge as they extend into the distance

A depth cue in which an object blocking part of another is perceived as nearer than the partly hidden object

Tendencies to perceive familiar objects as stable even when their retinal images change

Perceiving an object’s actual size as relatively stable despite changes in the size of its retinal image

Perceiving an object’s shape as stable despite viewing-angle changes in the shape of its retinal image

Perceiving an object’s relative lightness as stable despite changes in illumination

Perceiving familiar surface colors as relatively stable under differing illumination

The perception of motion when no object is actually moving continuously through the perceived path

Apparent continuous movement produced by rapidly presenting a sequence of slightly different still images

Apparent movement in which adjacent stationary lights flashing in sequence seem to be one moving light