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Human Perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, which in turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sensory system.Goldstein (2009) pp. 5–7 Vision involves light striking the retina of the eye; smell is mediated by odor molecules; and hearing involves pressure waves. Perception is not only the passive receipt of these signals, but it is also shaped by the recipient's learning, memory, expectation, and attention. Gregory, Richard. "Perception" in Gregory, Zangwill (1987) pp. 598–601. Sensory input is a process that transforms this low-level information to higher-level information (e.g., extracts shapes for object recognition). The process that follows connects a person's concepts and expectations (or knowledge), restorative and selective mechanisms (such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multistability
In a dynamical system, multistability is the property of having multiple stable equilibrium points in the vector space spanned by the states in the system. By mathematical necessity, there must also be unstable equilibrium points between the stable points. Points that are stable in some dimensions and unstable in others are termed unstable, as is the case with the first three Lagrangian points. Bistability Bistability is the special case with two stable equilibrium points. It is the simplest form of multistability, and can occur in systems with only one state variable, as it only takes a one-dimensional space to separate two points. Initial instability Near an unstable equilibrium, any system will be sensitive to noise, initial conditions and system parameters, which can cause it to develop in one of multiple divergent directions. In economics and social sciences, path dependence gives rise to divergent directions of development. Some path dependent processes are adequately ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Gregory
Richard Langton Gregory (24 July 1923 – 17 May 2010) was a British psychologist and Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol. Life and career Richard Gregory was born in London. He was the son of Christopher Clive Langton Gregory, the first director of the University of London Observatory, and his first wife, Helen Patricia (née Gibson). Gregory served with the Royal Air Force's Signals branch during World War II, and after the war earned an RAF scholarship to Downing College, Cambridge. He was made an Honorary Fellow of Downing in 1999. In 1967, with Prof. Donald Michie and Prof. Christopher Longuet-Higgins, he founded the Department of Machine Intelligence and Perception, a forerunner of the Department of Artificial Intelligence, at the University of Edinburgh. He was Head of the Bionics Research Laboratory, Professor of Bionics, and Department Chairman 1968–70. Gregory was founding editor of the journal ''Perception'' (1972), which emphasized pheno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illusion
An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the mind normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Although illusions distort the human perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people. Illusions may occur with any of the human senses, but visual illusions ( optical illusions) are the best-known and understood. The emphasis on visual illusions occurs because vision often dominates the other senses. For example, individuals watching a ventriloquist will perceive the voice is coming from the dummy since they are able to see the dummy mouth the words. Some illusions are based on general assumptions the brain makes during perception. These assumptions are made using organizational principles (e.g., Gestalt theory), an individual's capacity for depth perception and motion perception, and perceptual constancy. Other illusions occur because of biological sensory structures within the human body or conditions outside the body within one's phy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Color
Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associated with objects or materials based on their physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra. By defining a color space, colors can be identified numerically by their coordinates. Because perception of color stems from the varying spectral sensitivity of different types of cone cells in the retina to different parts of the spectrum, colors may be defined and quantified by the degree to which they stimulate these cells. These physical or physiological quantifications of color, however, do not fully explain the psychophysical perception of color appearance. Color science includes the perception of color by the eye and brain, the origin of color in materials, color theory in art, and the physics of electr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the brain. Only acoustic waves that have frequencies lying between about 20 Hz and 20 kHz, the audio frequency range, elicit an auditory percept in humans. In air at atmospheric pressure, these represent sound waves with wavelengths of to . Sound waves above 20 kHz are known as ultrasound and are not audible to humans. Sound waves below 20 Hz are known as infrasound. Different animal species have varying hearing ranges. Acoustics Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gasses, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound, and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an ''acoustician'', while someone working in the field of acoustica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Of Perception
The philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world.cf. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-episprob/ BonJour, Laurence (2007): "Epistemological Problems of Perception." ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', accessed 1.9.2010. Any explicit account of perception requires a commitment to one of a variety of ontological or metaphysical views. Philosophers distinguish internalist accounts, which assume that perceptions of objects, and knowledge or beliefs about them, are aspects of an individual's mind, and externalist accounts, which state that they constitute real aspects of the world external to the individual. The position of naïve realism—the 'everyday' impression of physical objects constituting what is perceived—is to some extent contradicted by the occurrence of perceptual illusions and hallucinations and the relativity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computation
Computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that follows a well-defined model (e.g., an algorithm). Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historically, people) that perform computations are known as ''computers''. An especially well-known discipline of the study of computation is computer science. Physical process of Computation Computation can be seen as a purely physical process occurring inside a closed physical system called a computer. Examples of such physical systems are digital computers, mechanical computers, quantum computers, DNA computers, molecular computers, microfluidics-based computers, analog computers, and wetware computers. This point of view has been adopted by the physics of computation, a branch of theoretical physics, as well as the field of natural computing. An even more radical point of view, pancomputationalism (inaudible word), is the postulate of digital physics that argues that the evolution of the universe is itself ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sensory Neuroscience
Sensory neuroscience is a subfield of neuroscience which explores the anatomy and physiology of neurons that are part of sensory systems such as vision, hearing, and olfaction. Neurons in sensory regions of the brain respond to stimuli by firing one or more nerve impulses (action potentials) following stimulus presentation. How is information about the outside world encoded by the rate, timing, and pattern of action potentials? This so-called neural code is currently poorly understood and sensory neuroscience plays an important role in the attempt to decipher it. Looking at early sensory processing is advantageous since brain regions that are "higher up" (e.g. those involved in memory or emotion) contain neurons which encode more abstract representations. However, the hope is that there are unifying principles which govern how the brain encodes and processes information. Studying sensory systems is an important stepping stone in our understanding of brain function in general. Typic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustav Fechner
Gustav Theodor Fechner (; ; 19 April 1801 – 18 November 1887) was a German physicist, philosopher, and experimental psychologist. A pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics (techniques for measuring the mind), he inspired many 20th-century scientists and philosophers. He is also credited with demonstrating the non-linear relationship between psychological sensation and the physical intensity of a stimulus via the formula: S = K \ln I, which became known as the Weber–Fechner law. Early life and scientific career Fechner was born at Groß Särchen, near Muskau, in Lower Lusatia, where his father, a maternal uncle, and his paternal grandfather were pastors. His mother, Johanna Dorothea Fechner (b. 1774), née Fischer, also came from a religious family. Despite these religious influences, Fechner became an atheist in later life. Fechner's father, Samuel Traugott Fischer Fechner (1765-1806) was free-thinking in many ways, for example by having his childre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantitatively
Quantitative research is a research strategy that focuses on quantifying the collection and analysis of data. It is formed from a deductive approach where emphasis is placed on the testing of theory, shaped by empiricist and positivist philosophies. Associated with the natural, applied, formal, and social sciences this research strategy promotes the objective empirical investigation of observable phenomena to test and understand relationships. This is done through a range of quantifying methods and techniques, reflecting on its broad utilization as a research strategy across differing academic disciplines. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories, and hypotheses pertaining to phenomena. The process of measurement is central to quantitative research because it provides the fundamental connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships. Quantitative data is any data that is in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychophysics
Psychophysics quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce. Psychophysics has been described as "the scientific study of the relation between stimulus and sensation" or, more completely, as "the analysis of perceptual processes by studying the effect on a subject's experience or behaviour of systematically varying the properties of a stimulus along one or more physical dimensions". ''Psychophysics'' also refers to a general class of methods that can be applied to study a perceptual system. Modern applications rely heavily on threshold measurement, ideal observer analysis, and signal detection theory. Psychophysics has widespread and important practical applications. For example, in the study of digital signal processing, psychophysics has informed the development of models and methods of lossy compression. These models explain why humans perceive very little loss of signal quality when audio and video sign ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perceptual Psychology
Perceptual psychology is a subfield of cognitive psychology that concerns the conscious and unconscious innate aspects of the human cognitive system: perception. A pioneer of the field was James J. Gibson. One major study was that of affordances, i.e. the perceived utility of objects in, or features of, one's surroundings. According to Gibson, such features or objects were perceived as affordances and not as separate or distinct objects in themselves. This view was central to several other fields as software user interface and usability engineering, environmentalism in psychology, and ultimately to political economy where the perceptual view was used to explain the omission of key inputs or consequences of economic transactions, i.e. resources and wastes. Gerard Egan and Robert Bolton explored areas of interpersonal interactions based on the premise that people act in accordance with their perception of a given situation. While behaviour is obvious, a person's thoughts and feelings ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
