Topic A - How do we see the world?

Content
Here is an outline of all the content in Topic A, including a description of what questions you may get.
 * 1) Biological structure of the eye
 * 2) Gregory's theory: Cues to depth such as superimposition, relative size, linear perspective, stereopsis, texture gradient, height in the plane; size constancy. Strengths + Weaknesses
 * 3) Gestalt laws: figure-ground, continuity, proximity, similarity and closure. Strengths + Weaknesses
 * 4) Visual illusions: fictions, ambiguous, distortions
 * 5) Palmer (Aims, procedure, findings/results, evaluation)
 * 6) Bartlett (Aims, procedure, findings/results, evaluation)
 * 7) Carmichael, Hogan and Walter (Aims, procedure, findings/results, evaluation)
 * IV, DV, statistics, independent groups design, repeated measures design, control of variables
 * 1) Ethical issues in lab experiments: Informed consent, right to withdraw
 * 2) Eyewitness memory and schema, influence on society

Exam Questions
Easy: Multiple choice questions, could be on anything, most commonly on 1,2,3 and 4.

Medium: Asked to explain illusions. Asked about 9, 10, 11.

Hard: Asked about 6,7,8.

Click here to see example exam questions for this topic!

Key Terminology
SCHEMA: A framework of knowledge about an object, event or group of people that can affect our perception and help us to organise information and recall what we have seen.

PERCEPTUAL SET: The tendency to notice some things more than others. This can be caused by experience, context or expectations.

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: the factor which is changed by the researcher in an experiment to make two or more conditions.

DEPENDENT VARIABLE: the factor which is measured in an experiment

CONTROL: the factor(s) which are kept unchanged to measure the impact of the independent variable

SERIAL REPRODUCTION: a task where a piece of information is passed from one participant to the next in a chain or ‘series’. Differences between each version are measured.

REPEATED PRODUCTION: a task where the participant is given a story or picture to remember. They then recall it several times after time delays. Differences between each version are measured.

RECONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY: recalled material is not just a ‘copy’ of what we see or hear. Information is stored and when it is remembered it is ‘rebuilt’, so can be affected by extra information and by ideas (like schemas) we might already have.