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Gestalt(Bless You)

Psychophysics (Not Physics for Psychos)

The Eyes Have It

Your BrainOn Light

You’re So Deep

This explains why these words in white letters stand out from the blue

What is the figure-ground principle?

This principle explains how we organize elements into basic shapes.

That was easy!

What is simplicity?

Don’t stand so close to me, we might be grouped together based upon this

principle

What is proximity?

I couldn’t seem to fill in what was missing, but now it’s done … I’m

glad I found this:

What is closure?

“When you see a fork in the road, take it.” Oh well, we’ll probably

stay on the same path, despite interruptions, thanks to this principle

What is continuity?

“Can you hear me now?” If so, I must have passed this level of

stimulus intensity

What is the absolute threshold?

There’s only one “p” in “pool,” but I’d watch out for those warm spots

by those kids. If you sensed that the temperature has changed you’ve

reached this

What is a just noticeable difference?

Can you read the words after the colon: Mr. Klein is great!

If you can’t detect itcorrectly 50% of the time, it counts

as this

What is a subliminal stimulus?

This states that the magnitude of a sensory experience is proportional to

the number of JNDs that the stimulus causing the experience is above absolute threshold. There

should be a “law” against such long definitions.

What is Fechner’s law?

With so much “noise” in here, I’m going to have a lot of “false alarms”

according to this theory

What is signal detection theory?

Who needs night vision goggles? I’ll just look slightly above or below the object in order to stimulate these

cells

What are rods?

Oh no, my lens is focusing the image too short to reach the retina! I have

this condition

What is nearsightedness?

I really need to read the fine details and analyze the colors. I’m going to

make sure I use this section of the retina that exclusively contains

cones

What is the fovea?

Love is blind, and so are we all at the blind spot. It’s located at this spot

where the optic nerve connects to the retina

What is the optic disc?

This is the point at which the optic nerves from the inside half of each

eye cross over and then project to the opposite half of the brain (don’t

jump off a cliff if you can’t pronounce it)

What is the optic chiasm?

According to this theory, combining three primary colors can yield a

million different colorful perceptions. A likely story.

What is trichromatic theory?

Stop being such a baby. Don’t do the opposite of what the cells next to you in the retina are doing. Oh well, I guess it’s hard to avoid this pattern

of neural activity

What is lateral antagonism?

About 90% of the axons from the retinas synapse here … must be

some nice nucleus … see if you can make a “L”ucky “G”uess

What is the lateral geniculate nucleus?

These two channels of the main visual pathway engage in parallel

processing … they are “mag”nificent in their ability to “par”se through

complex images we all encounter

What are the magnocellular and parvocellular channels?

Trying to see that bug on the tip of your nose is making you cross-eyed. Your eyes are using too much of this

binocular depth cue

What is convergence?

Whoa! We must be going really fast, those lampposts are a blur

thanks to this monocular depth cue

What is motion parallax?

I don’t care if your uncle looks taller than mine, it’s just because my uncle

is farther away. Besides that’s not where this pictorial depth cue gets its

name

What is relative size?

I don’t want to start an argument, but my left eye is seeing a different

image than my right. Good thing my brain is using this information to

calculate depth

What is retinal disparity?

Wow! Look at the detail in this flower close to me. I wish I could

see as much detail in that pretty yellow one in the distance. It must

be the work of this pictorial cue

What is texture gradient?

Our experience with room corners can help explain this illusion found

on many a cereal box

What is the Müller-Lyer illusion?