NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 6 Attention and Perceptual Processes

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NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 6 Attention and Perceptual Processes

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Attention and Perceptual Processes

Chapter: 6

PART – I

Module – 2: Basic Psychological Processes

This is an activity for you to understand yourself. 

1. Think how far away a candle should be for you to see its flame on a clear, dark night?

Ans: A candle flame can be seen from a distance of up to 30 miles (approximately 48 kilometres) on a clear, dark night.

2. How much salt you would need to add to 500 liters of water so that you can taste it?

Ans: A teaspoon of sugar can be detected when dissolved in about 9 litres of water. Therefore, the given answer of 1 gram of salt in 500 litres of water should not be used as the textbook answer.

3. In an average three-room home, how much room freshener will be needed to diffuse through?

Ans: Only 1 drop of room freshener (or perfume) diffused throughout the entire volume of a three-room apartment is enough to be smelled.

4. How far should you stand to be able to hear the ticking of a clock in very quiet conditions? (answers given at the end of the chapter)

Ans: You can hear the ticking of a clock or watch from a distance of 20 feet (approximately 6 metres) under very quiet conditions.

5. What kind of visual cues do we need to judge distance and depth?

Ans: To perceive the world in three dimensions, our brain relies on two main types of visual cues:

Monocular Cues (Psychological or Pictorial Cues): These can be perceived with only one eye and are used by artists to create depth on flat, two-dimensional surfaces:

Relative Size: Distant objects project a smaller image on our retina and are perceived as farther away.

Interposition (Overlapping): If one object partially blocks another, the blocked object is seen as farther away.

Linear Perspective: Parallel lines (such as railway tracks) appear to converge at a distance.

Aerial Perspective: Due to dust and moisture in the air, distant objects look hazy or blurry.

Light and Shade: Highlights and shadows provide information about distance, depth, and three-dimensional shape.

Relative Height: Objects placed higher up in our visual field are perceived as being further away.

Texture Gradient: Surfaces with denser and less detailed elements appear farther away.

Motion Parallax (Kinetic Cue): When we travel, nearby objects seem to rush past rapidly in the opposite direction, while distant objects move slowly in the same direction.

Binocular Cues (Physiological Cues): These require both eyes working together to judge depth:

Retinal/Binocular Disparity: Since our eyes are about 6.5 cm apart, each eye receives a slightly different image of the same object. The brain uses this disparity to calculate depth.

Convergence: Our eyes turn inward to focus on nearby objects. Gland and muscle messages regarding this inward turning are interpreted by the brain as depth.

6. How can TV commercials inspire you to buy the product? What makes the advertisement so appealing?

Ans: TV commercials inspire us to buy a product by using attractive visuals, catchy music, interesting stories, celebrities, emotional messages, and persuasive language. They highlight the product’s benefits and create a positive image of it. The advertisement becomes appealing because it catches our attention, creates interest, and makes us feel that the product will satisfy our needs or make our life better.

Intext Questions 6.1

1. The process of selection of few/certain stimuli over the others is called__________.

Ans: Attention.

2. ___________ ___________ in this state there is a complete physiological and mental preparedness to receive information.

Ans: Alerting function.

3. Nature of attention includes ___________ and _____________.

Ans: Fringe and focus.

4. There are two types of attention___________ and ___________.

Ans: Sustained and selective.

5. The term ___________ ___________ ___________was coined by the English scientist Colin Cherry in 1953.

Ans: Cocktail party effect.

Intext Questions 6.2

Complete the sentences given below.

1. Internal factors of attention are also called___________ factors.

Ans: Physical.

2. The internal factors that can draw our attention are:, ___________ and___________.

Ans: Need, interest and emotional state.

3. During festivals the movement of lights on shops is an example of___________factor of attention.

Ans: Movement.

4. If we suddenly pay attention to the electricity when there is a sudden power breakdown, it is an example. of ___________ factor of attention.

Ans: Change.

Intext Questions 6.3

Match the correct statements:

Column A	Column B
1. We perceive objects as whole rather than their parts.	(a) Proximity
2. We are more likely to view the lines crossing over instead of independent subsets.	(b) Closure
3. Objects similar to one another and have similar characteristics are perceived as a group.	(c) Symmetry
4. Objects that are close together in space are perceived as belonging together or as a group.	(d) Continuity
5. Symmetrical areas tend to be seen as figures against asymmetrical backgrounds.	(e) Similarity

Ans: 

1. We perceive objects as whole rather than their parts.	(b) Closure
2. We are more likely to view the lines crossing over instead of independent subsets.	(d) Continuity
3. Objects similar to one another and have similar characteristics are perceived as a group.	(e) Similarity
4. Objects that are close together in space are perceived as belonging together or as a group.	(a) Proximity
5. Symmetrical areas tend to be seen as figures against asymmetrical backgrounds.	(c) Symmetry

Intext Questions 6.4

Answer true or false:-

1. Depth perception is the ability to see the world in three dimensions.

Ans: True.

2. There are two types of cues for depth perception: overt and covert.

Ans: False.

3. Other names for the two types of cues are physiological and psychological cues.

Ans: True.

4. We perceive the world in three dimensions even though the sensation is in two dimensions.

Ans: True.

Intext Questions 6.5

Answer with one- two words:-

1. Why does our experience of brightness not change despite changes in the amount of reflected light reaching our eyes?

Ans: Brightness constancy.

2. The image of a coin looks different from every angle, yet we perceive it as flat and round. Why does it happen? Give reasons.

Ans: Shape constancy.

3. A red apple looks the same bright red even if it is in a dark room; what is the psychological phenomenon behind it?

Ans: Brightness constancy.

Intext Questions 6.6

Fill in the gaps:

1. Some perceptual illusions are ___________ and found in all individuals. For example, the rail tracks appear to be converging to all of us.

Ans: Universal.

2. Some other illusions seem to vary from individual to individual; these are called ___________ illusions.

Ans: Personal.

3. When we see moving pictures in a cinema show, we are influenced by this kind of illusion. This is called the ___________ – ___________ .

Ans: Phi Phenomena.

TERMINAL EXERCISES

1. Distinguish between selective and sustained attention.

Ans: Selective Attention is primarily concerned with the filtering or selection of a limited number of stimuli or objects from a vast pool of available environmental stimuli. Because our perceptual system has a limited capacity, we can only focus our awareness on a limited aspect of what we are capable of experiencing at any given moment.

Example: Listening closely to your teacher’s voice in a classroom while successfully blocking out the background noise coming from the corridor.

Phenomenon: A prime example is the “cocktail party effect” (coined by Colin Cherry in 1953), which is our ability to focus on a single person’s voice amidst a noisy room, yet instantly shift focus if our own name is spoken nearby.

Sustained Attention (also referred to as vigilance) is concerned with concentration and maintaining focus over longer durations. It is the ability to continuously monitor a specific task or screen for unpredictable signals over many hours.

Example: Air traffic controllers or radar readers who must constantly monitor blips on screens where a single missed signal could lead to fatal errors. Unlike selective attention, sustained attention is highly taxing and can lead to a decrease in performance if the task is monotonous.

2. Enumerate the laws of perceptual organization.

Ans: The Gestalt psychologists identified several laws (or principles) of perceptual organization that describe how the human mind groups smaller sensory details to perceive meaningful wholes. 

These include:

(i) Figure-Ground Segregation: This is the most fundamental and primitive organization, where we segment our visual field into a prominent “figure” (the object of focus) and an background “ground”.

(ii) Proximity: Objects that are close together in space or time are naturally perceived as belonging together or forming a group.

(iii) Similarity: Objects that look similar to one another or share similar physical characteristics (such as shape or color) are perceived together as a group.

(iv) Continuity: We tend to perceive stimuli as belonging together if they form a continuous, flowing pattern rather than disjointed, independent subsets.

(v) Symmetry: Symmetrical visual areas are highly likely to be grouped together and perceived as solid figures against asymmetrical backgrounds.

(vi) Closure: We have a strong natural tendency to “fill in the gaps” of an incomplete or broken stimulus, perceiving the object as a unified, complete whole rather than its separate parts.

3. The retinal image of the world is only two dimensional- yet why do we perceive the world in three dimensions? Explain.

Ans: Although the physical images projected onto our flat retinas are strictly two-dimensional (restricted to left, right, up, and down coordinates), we still perceive the world in three dimensions (possessing height, width, and depth).

This occurs because the brain actively processes and interprets two main types of distance and depth information, known as depth cues:

Binocular Cues (Physiological Cues): These require the coordinated use of both eyes. The horizontal distance of 6.5 cm between our eyes creates a slightly different image in each retina, called retinal disparity. The brain calculates this disparity, along with convergence (how much the eye muscles turn inward to focus on nearby objects), to construct a vivid sense of three-dimensional depth.

Monocular Cues (Psychological/Pictorial Cues): These are visual cues that can be perceived using only one eye. The brain uses multiple monocular cues—such as relative size, overlapping (interposition), linear perspective (converging parallel lines), highlights/shadows, and texture gradients—to reconstruct the three-dimensional layout of space from a flat two-dimensional retinal input.

4. What is perceptual constancy? Explain with your own examples.

Ans: Perceptual constancy is the psychological phenomenon in which physical objects are perceived as relatively stable, unvarying, and consistent in their properties (like size, shape, and brightness) despite drastic changes in their physical environment or their appearance on our retina.

Three major types of constancy:

(i) Size Constancy: The tendency for the perceived size of an object to remain unchanged despite changes in its distance from us (which changes the size of the image projected onto our retina).

Example: If you watch a family member walk away from you, the physical image they cast on your retina shrinks rapidly, yet you do not perceive them as physically shrinking; you perceive them as moving further away.

(ii) Shape Constancy (Form Constancy): Familiar objects retain their perceived shape even when viewed from different angles, which changes the geometric pattern on our retina.

Example: A circular dinner plate looks perfectly round to you even when viewed from an angle where the actual image hitting your retina is an ellipse or a short flat line.

(iii) Brightness Constancy: Objects maintain their perceived degree of whiteness, greyness, or blackness even when the actual amount of light reflecting off them changes dramatically.

Example: A sheet of white paper is perceived as white whether you look at it in direct, bright sunlight or inside a dimly lit room, just as black coal is still perceived as black in the bright sun.

5. Describe any three illusions.

Ans: An illusion is a mismatch between physical reality and our subjective perception, occurring when our sensory organs misinterpret environmental information. 

Three common visual illusions described in the text are:

(i) The Müller-Lyer Illusion: In this geometrical-optical illusion, two parallel lines of identical length are presented. One line ends with inward-pointing arrowheads, while the other ends with outward-pointing featherheads. Despite being mathematically equal, the line with featherheads is universally perceived as longer than the line with arrowheads.

(ii) The Ponzo Illusion: First demonstrated by Mario Ponzo in 1911, this illusion shows two identical horizontal lines placed across a pair of converging vertical lines (resembling railway tracks). The upper line is perceived as significantly longer because our brain uses the converging lines as a linear perspective depth cue, assuming the upper line is farther away in the distance and must therefore be larger.

(iii) The Apparent Movement Illusion (Phi-Phenomenon): This illusion of movement is experienced when motionless pictures or lights are projected one after another in rapid succession at a specific rate. This is the fundamental psychological trick behind cinema shows and flickering running decorative lights, where static frames are perceived as continuous, smooth movement.