Idkd Poem by imani halley

Form perception
When we sense something we do more than just take in light and sound etc. We process the info and turn it into something meaningful. For instance, a million leaves, some bark and branches are perceived as a tree.
A gestalt is a whole sum of multiple parts. The idea is that the whole, the sum of the parts, is greater than the individual parts. We're hardwired to look for the whole.
An example might be a bunch of small squares arranged in a circular pattern. If you asked a person, "What do you see? " they'll likely say, "A circle." They see the whole, not individual squares.
In a figure-ground situation, we can look at a figure against a background. Or we can switch the background to be the figure we're looking at, and the old figure becomes the new ground. Doing this can make us see different things.
When we look at things, we lump similar things into like groups and we like things complete. This is called grouping. There are several ways that we group things:
Proximity - things close to one another are grouped together.
Similarity - things alike are grouped.
Continuity - we like things that are unbroken.
Closure - we like to complete things that are not complete. We'll finish a circle only 90% complete.
Connectedness - we like things are linked or brought together.
Depth perception is the ability to see things in 3D which helps us gauge distance.
Depth perception starts early. In the visual cliff experiment, babies would not crawl across a glass table because they perceived a drop-off.
Since our eyes are about 2 ½ inches apart, we get binocular cues. This means that while viewing close objects, we see things from slightly different angles. This is called retinal disparity which enables our brain's to judge the distance of objects we're looking at.
This is seen in the "finger sausage" example where you hold fingers close to your nose then see a third "finger sausage" floating in the middle.
3D movies use retinal disparity by filming with two cameras a few inches apart.
We get monocular cues at greater distances because things are too far away for binocular cues to matter. There are several monocular cues:
Relative height - things seen higher up are perceived as farther away.
Relative size - things small are perceived as farther away.
Interposition - when things are "stacked", the one that's covered up is farthest, the one that's not covered is closest.
Linear perspective - parallel lines, like railroad tracks, converge in the distance; the more they converge, the farther away.
Light and shadow - close objects reflect more light, farther ones appear dimmer.
Relative motion - while we move, things close to us appear to move fast in the opposite direction; things farther away appear to move very slowly or not at all.
Motion perception
In the stroboscopic effect, we perceive a series of still photos (like a film) as having continuous motion.
In the phi phenomenon, two lights flashing alternately gives the perception one light moving back-and-forth. This is seen in neon lights or marquee signs that are "animated".
Perceptual constancy
We expect things to retain constancy in terms of angles, distances, and illumination.
Shape constancy is our tendency to expect things to retain their shape. A door viewed from different angles actually looks like a trapezoid, but our expectations are that it's a rectangle.
Size constancy is our tendency to expect things to retain their size. A bus view from miles away looks small, but we expect it to be big enough for lots of people to fit inside.
In the moon illusion, the moon on the horizon looks huge, but straight above, it looks small. This is because on the horizon, the moon has distance cues like a house or tree that fool us. Up high, there are no cues.
In the Ponzo illusion, two equal-size lines appear different lengths if placed between two converging lines. The one in the back looks longer because the monocular cue of "linear perspective" fools us.
An Ames room is a funky-shaped room with angular dimensions. Since we expect a room to be at 90° right angles, the room fools us. Two people of equal height seem very different in height depending on where in the room they stand.
Lightness constancy is our tendency to expect things to retain their lightness.
Color constancy is our tendency to expect things to retain their color. Yet we can be fooled because we perceive colors in relation to their surroundings. When the surroundings change, our perception of the color changes too.
Color constancy is our tendency to expect things to retain their color. Yet we can be fooled because we perceive colors in relation to their surroundings. When the surroundings change, our perception of the color changes too.
Sensory deprivation and restored vision
On rare occasions, people are born without sight but then later gain it. The question is, can they recognize things they've come to know by touch only? The answer is mixed…
These people could distinguish figure and ground.
They could also sense colors. These facts suggest that we're born with these abilities.
These people could not recognize by vision things they knew by touch.
Perceptual adaptation
Perceptual adaptation is our ability to adjust to changes in our sensations. For example, we eventually get used to new glasses that make the world look funky.
This is seen via "inversion goggles". These goggles can skew our vision by a large degree, usually 40° to one side. At first, we're way off. After a while, we get accustomed to the skew and start to see normal.
The same is true of inversion goggles that flip our flip upside down. After days, the world will flip back to normal (thanks to our amazing brain doing the work for us) .
Perceptual set
What we've already seen and experienced (and thus expect) add up to what's called a perceptual set.
Once we have a perceptual set in place, we often have trouble seeing what's really there. For example…
A log floated in Loch Ness, but people, expecting to see the "monster", indeed perceived the log as the monster.
The context also impacts our perception. When something is out of context, we often misperceive it.
For example, if someone said, "It's wagging its tail, that cute little log, " we'd likely hear "dog" because that's the context.
The key to context is that everything is relative. A 6'9" basketball player is tall, until he stands beside a 7'9" basketball player.
Our emotions and motivations also influence our perceptions.
The emotional state that you're in, positive or negative, can influence your perceptions. For instance, a hill looks huge to a tired person, not so big to a refreshed person.
When a motivation is linked to a sensation, people are more likely to perceive the hoped-for perception.
This was seen in an ambiguous picture of a horse/seal. If prompted with a reward to see one or the other, people quickly saw it.
Claims of ESP
Half of all people believe in ESP, AKA "Extra Sensory Perception". ESP is the belief that some people can sense things beyond our normal senses (sight, sound, etc.) . ESP believers feel people some are "psychic" or they can "feel it", read minds, are clairvoyant and the like.
Promonition or pretensions?
Putting ESP to experimental test