Factors Affecting Perception (AQA GCSE Psychology): Flashcards

Bruner & Minturn showed perception is not based on the stimulus alone but on past experience, supporting Gregory’s constructivist theory.

It could help avoid errors in policing — someone running down a street in a high-crime area may simply be running for a bus.

It is difficult to test in real-world settings, because expectation happens unpredictably and often without people knowing. Lab experiments are used instead, which lack validity.

True.

The ‘numbers’ condition may have contained more Maths-oriented participants, already predisposed to see numbers rather than letters.

Culture is the social world a person grows up in — their family, community and country, and the beliefs, attitudes and ways of doing things they share.

It determines what we are used to and familiar with — the kinds of buildings, landscapes and images we have been surrounded by.

The nature–nurture question. If perception is innate it should be the same everywhere; if it is learned, it should differ between cultures.

To find out whether people from different cultures interpret depth cues in 2-D pictures differently.

Black and white South Africans, some of whom had been to school and some of whom had not.

2-D drawings of a hunter with a spear, an elephant and an antelope. The hunter pointed at the antelope, but the depth cues — height in plane and relative size — suggested the elephant was further away.

The elephant — which means they did not use the depth cues.

Schooled participants, both black and white, more than unschooled ones. White schooled participants were also more likely than black schooled participants.

That the ability to interpret depth cues in pictures is learned. Schooling gave experience of 2-D images, and under apartheid white families also had more access to books and magazines at home.

Hudson’s findings support Gregory’s constructivist theory of perception.

It showed that cultural schemas distort memory, so culture affecting perception is consistent with wider evidence about how the mind works.

Instructions often have to be translated, and researchers cannot be sure the translated question means the same thing. Participants may answer differently because they misunderstood the task.

False.

Many had never handled paper or seen printed pictures, so their answers may reflect unfamiliarity with pictures as objects rather than an inability to use depth cues.

His participants grew up before global media. With near-universal exposure to 2-D images through screens today, the same differences may no longer exist.

Emotion is a strong feeling such as happiness, fear, anger or anxiety.

It affects what we pay attention to, what we ignore, and how quickly we recognise things.

Perceptual sensitisation is where positive emotions make us more likely to notice things we find exciting or interesting — they may even seem bigger or brighter, like a football fan spotting their team’s colours in a crowd.

Perceptual defence is where negative emotions such as anxiety make us slower to perceive things that are unpleasant or threatening — the brain briefly ‘blocks’ them.

To find out whether emotionally threatening words take longer to recognise than neutral words.

McGinnies (1949) used a sample of 16 students, 8 male and 8 female.

Each participant sat alone and watched words flash on a screen, very briefly at first and then for longer, until they could say the word aloud. Words were either neutral or taboo.

Using galvanic skin response (GSR) — electrical changes in the skin caused by sweating.

Participants took longer to recognise and say the taboo words. The taboo words also produced a bigger GSR, showing they caused greater emotional arousal.

That emotion is a factor in perceptual set. The anxiety caused by the taboo words slowed their recognition — an example of perceptual defence.

GSR is an objective, biological measure which cannot be faked, so this part of the procedure is free of demand characteristics.

False.

Participants may simply have been embarrassed to say the taboo words aloud — perceiving them just as quickly but feeling awkward about voicing them.

Advertisers could present pleasant images to potential customers, and schools could display only positive words and images to encourage a positive attitude to learning.

Motivation is a strong desire or need that drives behaviour, such as hunger, thirst or wanting to succeed.

Perceptual accentuation is where wanting something makes it seem bigger, brighter or more vivid than it really is.

Being hungry, thirsty or tired is a powerful motivator and makes the thing we lack especially noticeable — when you are hungry, food adverts seem to jump out at you.

To find out whether food deprivation affects how food pictures are perceived — specifically, whether hungry people see them as brighter.

The experimental group in Gilchrist & Nesberg (1952) was 26 undergraduates who volunteered to go without food for 20 hours.

Four slides of meals — T-bone steak, fried chicken, hamburgers and spaghetti — each shown for 15 seconds.

The projector was turned off and on again with the picture dimmer, and participants adjusted a knob to make it look the same as before. They were told it was a test of matching pictures.

Food-deprived participants turned the brightness up higher than the control group — they remembered the food as brighter than it actually was. The control group showed no such effect.

Hunger is a motivating factor that affects perception. Being deprived of a basic need creates a heightened sensitivity to related stimuli, making food appear brighter — perceptual accentuation.

Sanford deprived participants of food for up to four hours, then showed them ambiguous pictures. The longer they had gone without food, the more likely they were to see the pictures as food — a brown blob as a hamburger.

Because the non-deprived group showed no brightness effect, researchers could be confident the difference was caused by hunger — the IV — allowing a cause-and-effect conclusion.

False.

Going without food for 20 hours causes discomfort, and participants may not have understood how unpleasant it would feel. Once they had started, they may have felt unable to withdraw without spoiling the study.

Participants judged the brightness of pictures of food in a lab, which is not how motivation affects perception in everyday life, so the findings may not generalise.