Discussion Questions

1. Attention is quite obviously a cognitive process. How is attention directed, and when directed, does one's focus toward something mean that something else is no longer attended to by our attention?

2. If the phenomenon of texting, versus talking to a fellow passenger, versus talking on a cell phone differs - how does it differ?

3. Using two kids, looking at the same picture, why would one see 17 different colors, and the other 5?

Our main text, (Galotti, 2014) does provide material here for us to use.

Both chapters in our readings this week discuss some points on this question.

4. Visual perception is complicated because people's cognitive systems are not adept at analyzing visual stimuli. To resolve visual ambiguities, people make unconscious assumptions that resolve the ambiguities. What are some examples of visual ambiguities that you have encountered today?

5.What type of cognitive assumptions did you make to solve them?(Contiuation from question above)

6.As you have read in this week's readings assignment, perception involves identifying things through one's senses. Unfortunately, each of the senses can be impaired. Discuss how perception can be impaired.

7. Explain some methods you can use to cope with these impairments.(From question above)

One of the 'themes' emerging with some of the posts is that of perception.

This is an area our main text goes into great detail about.

For example, "The common assumption underlying the models of perception we have examined (especially the top-down models) is that the perceiver does something to the proximal stimulus" (Galotti, p. 57, 2014).

8. How does our text approach this idea of perception?