So far the outcomes on visual perception that I have corrected have been eye-catching. Below are some of the year eleven students’ clever visual illusions or ambiguous stimuli. Test your own visual tendencies or leave an admiring comment.
Here is the first stimulus, a painting by Emma, whose work also appears in an earlier post.
Part of Emma's comment on her work: "The ambiguous stimulus I have created can be interpreted in two main ways...Notice that when you focus upon the couple, what used to be part of the figure becomes part of the ground." A remarkably effective and slightly spooky artwork, Emma - brilliant!
took quite a different course in developing his visual stimulus. You can view it below: Jamie’s Visual Stimulus
Bridey and Steven, meanwhile, applied some Gestalt principles to an icon in the history of psychology. I was impressed by their ingenuity as well as by Steven’s description, which is shown below the picture. The only thing missing from the stimulus is the ubiquitous cigar…
An old man, a famous psychologist or some lines of text? - A visual stimulus created by Bridey and Steven
Steven’s description:
“The Gestalt principles play a huge role when observing this picture, as the brain has a tendency to organise and group many small objects (words or letters) into one larger object (a man’s face). The figure-ground principle is vital in determining what an observer sees in this image.
“If the figure (the focus point) is the image as a whole, the observer will most likely see a face. If the observer looks more closely and makes the figure a small section of the image, they are more likely to see lines of text. Humans also group visually similar objects together. This is why we can differentiate between the lighter areas of the text (for example the beard) and the darker areas (for example the glasses). Here the observer groups the elements of visual similarity (lighter text or darker text) together to form recognisable objects. The proximity of the letters and words is also key in the perception of this image. If the letters and words were further apart the observer would be far less likely to see a face…”
Finally, the photo below shows Lizzie’s version of the hallway illusion. Although a tall girl, Lizzie looks somehow not quite so tall in one part of the picture. The reasons include our use of depth principles such as relative size and linear perspective, as well as other pictorial cues.
In my mind, of course, wherever she stands and whatever she does, Lizzie will always be tall…
In every picture you see, the monocular cues to depth help you to interpret the picture as a 3D scene. Sometimes these cues can lead you astray, especially if someone doctors what you see.
Even clever, quick-witted rats need to revise the twists and turns of the maze frequently. I'm guessing it's the same for you humans.
Below is a list of the topics that will be covered in the first test. The test is quite long but not particularly hard – especially if you work through each dot below with a conscience.
An important hint:
Psychology teachers and examiners get all worked up when you define a word by using the word that you are actually meant to be defining:
e.g. “Behaviour is, like, well, you know, behaviour that you do when you do something.”
No, no, no! You must use different words!
An improved version:
Behaviour means observable actions or responses by an organism.
e.g. “Naturalistic observation means, you know, you observe people or animals in their natural habitat.”
Nope, that won’t work either.
An improved version:
Naturalistic observation is a research method in which psychologists watch the behaviour of humans or animals in their normal environment, without intervening or influencing them in any way.
Emma sat in my lessons last week, doing all the set work AND creating remarkable drawings, including ambiguous stimuli that astounded me and impressed the whole class. Watch this space for more of her drawings. She doesn't even seem to have to try... Sigh.
See also the downloadable handouts on this blog at this link:
