Perceptual Psychology
Perceptual Psychology - Related Videos
06:48
The Staircase Procedure for Finding a Perceptual Threshold
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2023
Source: Laboratory of Jonathan Flombaum—Johns Hopkins University Psychophysics is the name for a set of methods in perceptual psychology designed in order to relate the actual intensity of stimuli to their perceptual intensity. One important aspect of psychophysics involves the measurement of perceptual thresholds: How bright does a light need to be for a person to be able to detect it? How little pressure applied to the skin is detectable? How soft can a sound be and still be heard? Put...
10:45
Finding Your Blind Spot and Perceptual Filling-in
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2023
Source: Laboratory of Jonathan Flombaum—Johns Hopkins University In the back of everyone's eye is a small piece of neural tissue called the retina. The retina has photosensitive cells that respond to stimulation by light. The responses of these cells are sent into the brain through the optic nerve, a bundle of neural fibers. In each retina there is a place somewhere in the periphery where the outputs from retinal cells collect and the bundled optic nerve exits to the brain. At that location,...
05:13
Perspectives on Experimental Psychology
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2023
Source: Laboratories of Gary Lewandowski, Dave Strohmetz, and Natalie Ciarocco—Monmouth University As the Department Chair of Psychology at Monmouth University, I teach primarily upper level undergraduate students who are interested in Experimental Methods. These classes don’t have the same inherent appeal to students. This JoVE Psychology collection will help students vicariously watch the experiments being performed from start to finish, allowing them to gain exposure to over a dozen topics...
04:57
Perspectives on Cognitive Psychology
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2023
Source: Laboratory of Jonathan Flombaum—Johns Hopkins University As an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University, I teach Introduction to Cognitive Psychology. This large class primarily consists of freshman and sophomores majoring in related fields, like Psychology, Neuroscience, or Cognitive Science. One of the challenges I face in the classroom is teaching students to appreciate how data are obtained in the process of performing experiments.
09:39
The Trier Social Stress Test Protocol for Inducing Psychological Stress
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Cited by 251 •
2011
This article describes a protocol for inducing psychological stress in participants, which enables researchers to measure psychological, physiological and neuroendocrine responses to stress within single participants or between groups.
FAQs
Attention does not simply add more sensory information; it helps determine which signals receive interpretive priority. Expectation and context then influence how those selected signals are organized, so the same sensory input may contribute to different experiences under different circumstances. This interaction helps explain why perception is not a direct copy of physical stimulation.
Visual illusions are useful because they reveal a separation between physical signals and experienced meaning. When an illusion produces an interpretation that differs from a stimulus’s physical properties, researchers can examine how organization, expectation, and context shape the result. Perceptual psychology therefore treats errors as evidence about processing, not merely as failures of vision.
Multisensory integration links information from vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell within a single perceptual experience. Studying this process shows how people handle signals from different sensory channels rather than analyzing each sense in isolation. The findings help clarify how combined information supports meaningful experiences of the surrounding world.
Studies commonly begin by examining a perceptual phenomenon, such as an illusion or an object-recognition task, and then consider how attention, expectation, or context may shape the experience. Comparing the experienced interpretation with the physical signal helps researchers identify where perception diverges from reality and connect that divergence to cognitive processes.
In clinical assessment, perceptual psychology offers a framework for considering how a person organizes and interprets sensory information, rather than focusing only on the incoming signal. Its findings can help relate differences in perception to broader cognition and behavior. This makes the field relevant when professionals examine individual differences in experience and educational settings.
Human-computer interaction and safer-environment design apply perceptual findings to situations in which people must interpret sensory information effectively. Research on visual organization, object recognition, and multisensory integration can inform how information is presented and understood. The practical value lies in accounting for the gap between physical signals and the experiences people actually form from them.