Questions to Turn In – Just submit this part of the assignment to Moodle.

1. Objects Can Be Hidden or Blurred – Thoroughly explain both problems. 2 points.In cognitive psychology objects can be hidden. This is to mean that objects can be hidden from the view as well as from the perception of the viewer and the person displaying the object only allow the viewer to see what he/she wants them to see. Therefore this is one the factors which determine or prevent the development of a perceiving machine because a perceiving machine will most probably focus on what is visible and what is not visible therefore it is difficult to come up with a machine which will get to know if an object is being hidden and therefore this becomes a great hindrance.

Objects can also be blurred. This happens when something is not clear. For example when there is fog it is not easy to see clearly and therefore the understanding of one thing by the viewer may be completely wrong because they cannot see it clearly. This also becomes a challenge when it comes to creation of a perceiving machine. This is because the machine can make mistakes just like a human being can make mistakes. When something is blurred then it makes it difficult for the object to be fully understood or even interpreted.

2. What happened in the Saffran study? What were the results? Provide plenty of detail! 2

points.

The infants have different ways of learning new things. In the study saffron used familiarization preference procedure. During the study infants were exposed to auditory material that serves as potential learning experience. The test was carried out through an items contained in the auditory material. The infants were familiarized with a sequence of two classes of words for two minutes. Speakers were female and the intonation was monotone. There were no acoustic indicators of word boundaries. The only cues to word boundaries were the transitional probabilities between syllables. Within word the transitional probability of syllables was is one while across word boundaries the transitional probability of syllables is 0.33. The only cues to word boundaries were the transitional probabilities between syllables. Each infant presented with repetitions of 1 to 4 words. 2 were real words and two were fake words. Infants listened longer to non-words. The explanation of this is that maybe the infants noticed a familiar sequence of words and didn’t notice the differences in the transitional probabilities. Children are sensitive to the transitional probability information, this is because they noticed the difference between real words and part-words from the artificial language after 2 minutes of listening.

3. Compare and contrast Bayesian inference and Helmholtz’s idea. 2 points

Byesian framework gets its basis on the idea of perception by Helmholtz. This comes about as unconscious inference. Helmholtz discovered that retinal images were ambiguous and prior knowledge was very important when it came to interpretation. Therefore Helmholtz proposed that different images can be viewed or interpreted in so many different ways depending on the viewpoint of different factors in play. Therefore his suggestion was that the only best way to interpret and understand something fully and in a good manner was by having a prior knowledge about the image which enables one to understand the image fully.

Bayesian inference is the process of deducing or getting properties about a population distribution group from data using Bayes theorem. Those who use Bayesian inference to make interpretations are called ideal observers.

4. What happened in the Ungerlieder and Mishkin study? What were the results? 2 points

This study suggests that human beings have two visual systems and this helps a person to fully see and interpret something. However this can also bring the inability to see clearly in a person. There had been debates and most of the people and most of the time visualized the two visual systems. The old sub-cortical visual system enables animals and human beings to see and locate the objects while the newer cortical system allows them to identify the different objects one is exposed to.

5. What happened in the Milner and Goodale study? What were the results? 2 points

In this study there is a suggestion for separate visual pathways. From the striate cortex there are two visual pathways which get information about what should happen that is inferior temporal and posterior parietal cortex. The two are the different visual pathways which get information about visual image differently. Ungerleider and Mishkin got their evidence from elecro-physiological, anatomical and behavioural studies. Therefore this study finds out that there are two-visual systems within the human visual system.