Environmental Perception

Sensation - a process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energy

Perception - process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events

Our sensory and perceptual processes work together to help us sort out complex processes

Environmental perception is the process by which you receive, discriminate, and identify information about the physical environment

The initial gathering of information (text)

3 Major Characteristics - William Ittelson (1978)

1.  Person-environment is the ultimate unit of study (we are part of the scene)

2.  Information processing is central

3.  Involves purposeful actions (clear goal or purpose)

Person-Environment as the ultimate unit of study

·  The person bring individual goals, expectations, values into the perceptual experience

·  We are part of the setting

·  We notice things that are significant to us (functionalism)

·  We tend to perceive the ‘whole” setting

·  We explore the environment from many angles

People’s perceptions are often influenced by previous expectation and the context of the situation

PERCEPTUAL SET- A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another

Perceptual Set: Schemas

Information processing

The environment contains more information than we can comprehend at once, so we must selectively attend or process some information

Some scenes or environments are easier to process (legible)

Selective Attention

Inattentional Blindness - The inability to see an object or a person in our midst.

Involves Purposeful Actions

·  We perceive through activity

·  Part of this activity is simple exploration to orient ourselves in the environment

·  Part of this activity is designed to find strategies for using the environment to meet our needs and goals

Gestalt Psychology - School of psychology started by Max Wertheimer and others in Germany in the 1920’s

Believed that “organization” is basic to all mental activity

They were interested in showing the global nature of our perceptions

Gestalt means “whole or pattern” in German

Holistic approach to learning and perception

Figure Ground - A fundamental distinction we make is to separate a shape or form (figure) from its surroundings (ground).

Laws of Perceptual Organization

The basic principle is “grouping”- the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups or wholes

Similarity - We tend to view things that look similar as connected in some way. (shape, size, color)

Proximity - Tend to group, make a whole with objects that are closer together

Continuity- Tend to see a line or curve as a continuous figure

Closure - Whole figures tend to dominate.

Is Perception Learned Or Innate?

Nativist believe human perception is unlearned and come to us fairly automatically (nature)

Gibson’s Ecological theory

Empiricists believe perception is affected by learning through direct observation (nurture)

Brunswik’s Lens model

Carpentered-World Hypothesis - Allport and Pettigrew(1957) first suggested this hypothesis

H: People who live in cultures with straight lines, right angles and rectangles should be more susceptible to illusions involving straight lines etc than people in noncarpentered cultures

Allport and Pettigrew first tested that hypothesis with Zulus in isolated regions of southeastern Africa who live in open spaces and curves.

Used the rotating trapezoid to test this question

Additional Studies

The results were also found in studies using other illusions such as the Muller-Lyer and the Ponzo illusion

Ponzo Illusion

Leibowitz and Pick (1972) studied the magnitude of the Ponzo illusion in students in the USA and Uganda, and found that rural Ugandans saw no illusion at all, whereas US students saw a strong illusion

Size Constancy - The tendency to view an object as constant in size despite changes in the size of the retinal image.

Shape Constancy - The tendency to see an object as keeping its form despite changes in orientation.