Study Guide for Chapter 8

1.         Why do your authors claim that the brain must guess about an object’s true shape when the object is perceived visually?

2.         Explain the differences between allocentric and egocentric frames of reference.

3.         For what purpose is verneir acuity used? What is known about how vernier acuity is accomplished by photoreceptors?

4.         Explain how Michael Posner successfully “uncoupled” fixation and attention. Why did Posner purposely include miscues 20% of the time?

5.         Which area or lobe of the brain is probably involved in spatial attention?

6.         What happened when researchers equipped subjects with visual inversion goggles for several consecutive days? What part of the brain adapted to the inversion?

7.         What is the difference between absolute and relative distance? Which is more accurate? How do these characteristics relate to allocentric and egocentric frames of reference?

8.         What distances make up personal space, action space, and vista space? Provide examples for which each would be used.

9.         What are the differences between oculomotor cues and visual cues? Which of these types of cues requires supplemental information?

10.       How do accommodation and convergence provide cues about depth? How accurate are these cues when they are the only source of information?

11.       What is stereopsis?

12.       Explain retinal disparity and how it provides information about depth.

13.       What is the horopter? How did Wheatstone utilize information about the horoptor to create stereoscopes and stereograms?

14.       What is a random-dot stereogram? What does it mean to filter a random-dot stereogram?

15.       What is binocular rivalry and what are some of the factors that influence it?

16.       Explain occlusion. What is amodal completion?

17.       What is transparency? How does transparency represent a special case of occlusion?

18.       What  role does familiar size play in depth and distance perception?

19.       Explain the “moon illusion” (what it is and what causes it).

20.       You should be able to describe pictorial depth cues such as linear perspective (and height in the field of view), texture gradient, aerial (atmospheric) perspective, and shading.

21.       Explain motion parallax and how it serves as a cue to depth and distance.

22.       In what ways do investigations of illusions such as the Muller-Lyer illusion contribute to our understanding of perception (especially depth perception)?

23.       What is size constancy?