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An Introduction to Visual Perception
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Psychological Approaches – Visual Perception from Biological and Cognitive Perspectives
In this course, Dr Alex Mitchell (University of Edinburgh) explores visual perception from both a biological and a cognitive perspective. In the first lecture, we think about what perception psychology is and how the biological structure of our eyes and visual systems in the brain enable us to see. In the second lecture, we think about the biological approach to understanding colour vision and tetrachromacy. In the third lecture, we think about the cognitive approach to understanding colour vision, with a specific focus on the role of language in impacting our visual experiences and expression. Next, we think about brain damage, with specific focus on the role of lesion studies and the double dissociation method for establishing causation. In the fifth and final lecture, we think about the nature nurture debate in vision, looking at Morton and Johnson’s research on infant facial recognition and Pettigrew’s research into new-born kitten visual stimuli exposure.
An Introduction to Visual Perception
In this lecture, we think about perception psychology, focusing in particular on: (i) defining perception through either a biological or cognitive approach; (ii) the biological structure of our eye, specifically the retina, which allows us to process both achromatic (using rod cells) and chromatic (using cone cells) light; (iii) the location and volume of the visual processing areas of the brain; (iv) the functional segregation of the visual processing systems, including the primary visual cortex.
Hi, I'm Dr Alex Mitchell,
00:00:06and I'm a teaching fellow in psychology at the University of Edinburgh,
00:00:08and I specialise in understanding human vision
00:00:12and specifically how what we see affects how we interact with our world.
00:00:16And the aim of this series is to help you to understand different approaches
00:00:21to how we study psychology through the lens of a slightly different field.
00:00:28And that is perception.
00:00:33So what? How do we define perception?
00:00:35And if you enter that into Google, you get two definitions,
00:00:39and
00:00:43the first definition is perception is our ability to see,
00:00:45hear or interpret something through our senses.
00:00:49And you could argue that that's more a more biological approach to understanding
00:00:55perception that we receive information from
00:00:59our surroundings through touch or sight.
00:01:02And then we interpret that information in our brain.
00:01:05The second understanding of perception
00:01:09is the way there's something is understood or regarded or interpreted,
00:01:12so that's a more cognitive interpretation of perception,
00:01:18because it's how what we see or experience
00:01:22in our environment affects our own perception of
00:01:25the world and how our experiences affect our
00:01:28ability to interact with our surroundings and our peers
00:01:32and a good example of This is something
00:01:37like listening to music and experiencing emotion when you
00:01:38hear that piece of music or seeing the face of a loved one and experiencing love.
00:01:43So these are perceptual experiences, hearing and seeing.
00:01:47But we also have emotions and cognition associated with those experiences
00:01:51and in psychology.
00:01:59We are generally interested in studying
00:02:00perception for those for both those reasons
00:02:03was interested in the biological aspect of perception and also the more cognitive,
00:02:05emotional and social aspects of perception,
00:02:09because I imagine originally think perception is a funny thing
00:02:12to study because you assume it's to be more biological.
00:02:15But actually, we cannot have experiences without our senses.
00:02:17So you could argue that you can't have a human mind without, uh,
00:02:21without site without hearing, without sense of our sense of touch.
00:02:27So it's a fundamentally critical aspect of psychology.
00:02:30So what I'm going to talk to you most about today is the human visual system.
00:02:35So we're going to take a look into how our brain processes what we see,
00:02:39and that's because I'm an expert in human vision,
00:02:45but also because that is the sense that we have the best understanding of
00:02:48mostly because it's our most critical sense.
00:02:53It's what the majority of us depend on
00:02:56the most when we interact with our surroundings.
00:02:58So a little glimpse into the human visual system, um, majority of what we see, uh,
00:03:02comes through our eyes, Um, so light hits the back of our eye, which is the retina.
00:03:09So there are cells at the back of our eye called photoreceptors,
00:03:16and these compromise of two main cells rods and cone cells
00:03:19and red cells are critical for seeing at night
00:03:24they process black and white or a chromatic light,
00:03:26whereas cone cells are really important during the day because
00:03:30they process colourful light or what we call chromatic light.
00:03:34And these rod and cone cells receive light signals from our environment and
00:03:38produce electrical signals that go through a something called the optic nerve,
00:03:43which goes from the eyes to the back of the brain.
00:03:48And all our visual information is processed at the back of the brain,
00:03:52which seems a little illogical, um,
00:03:55in a region called the primary visual cortex.
00:03:58So all of our the light that comes through
00:04:01our eyes is processed in this specific specific region.
00:04:03First, the primary visual cortex
00:04:06Um, and the primary visual cortex is the first stop.
00:04:09And in a large network of different brain areas, the makeup, the visual system
00:04:13and the visual system compromises a whopping 30% of the human brain.
00:04:18And if you think about the fact that we have four other senses alongside vision,
00:04:24that's a huge amount of brain space that our vision occupies.
00:04:28And the visual system is functionally segregated with what that means is that
00:04:33there are different areas of the brain that each have a specific role.
00:04:39So as well as the primary visual cortex,
00:04:44which processes all of the light information.
00:04:47There's areas that are dedicated to processing colour or movement or faces,
00:04:49or even the movement of reaching out and grasping something in our environment.
00:04:55So, um, in this series,
00:05:02we will be looking at the different approaches we used to studying vision.
00:05:05And this can range from the purely biological
00:05:09so looking at the genetic influence of vision
00:05:11and two more cognitive and even social aspects of vision,
00:05:14which we might cover a little bit less today.
00:05:17So there are many different ways that we can look
00:05:19at how our experiences are defined by what we see,
00:05:21and by looking at multiple approaches,
00:05:25it gives us a rich overview and understanding of vision.
00:05:27So I will be talking about three main approaches today.
00:05:32I'll be talking about the biological approach division,
00:05:35cognitive approaches and also a method called lesion studies,
00:05:38where we look at what happens to vision when the brain is damaged.
00:05:41
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Mitchell, A. (2022, March 15). Psychological Approaches – Visual Perception from Biological and Cognitive Perspectives - An Introduction to Visual Perception [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/approaches-visual-perception-from-biological-and-cognitive-perspectives/colour-vision-a-cognitive-lens
MLA style
Mitchell, A. "Psychological Approaches – Visual Perception from Biological and Cognitive Perspectives – An Introduction to Visual Perception." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 15 Mar 2022, https://massolit.io/courses/approaches-visual-perception-from-biological-and-cognitive-perspectives/colour-vision-a-cognitive-lens