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Perception

Perception. Psychology 3906. Introduction. Why should we start here? Specializations at this level should lead to specializations of cognitive mechanisms Nice example of modularity. Some examples. Bats and sonar Snakes and IR Platypus and EM Bees and UV

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Perception

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  1. Perception Psychology 3906

  2. Introduction • Why should we start here? • Specializations at this level should lead to specializations of cognitive mechanisms • Nice example of modularity

  3. Some examples • Bats and sonar • Snakes and IR • Platypus and EM • Bees and UV • So two flowers that look the same to us, may look quite a bit different to a bee

  4. So.. • Some animals could have similar apparatus to us, however, environmental conditions may have created differences • For example, great tits in Iran and the UK

  5. Physical leads to psychological • Even the placement of the eyes in pigeons has lead to them having two foveas • Those foveas serve separate systems (Roberts, Phelps, Macuda, Brodbeck and Russ, 1996)

  6. How can we study animal perception? • Electrophysiology and single cell recording (e.g. Barry Frost) • Behavioural change (e.g. Dan Weary) • Animal psychophysics • Clever experiments needed here • Goldsmith et al and hummingbirds • Foree and LoLordo, better get the right behaviour..

  7. We are just animals • Quality • Intensity • JND • Weber’s Law

  8. She didn’t call it cognition, evolution and behaviour for nothing… • Sensory neurons respond more to more intense stimuli • More reliable behaviour to more intense stimuli • Male songbirds with a larger repertoire are more successful!

  9. Signal Detection theory • You know, hits, misses, false alarms etc • The average looking male is less successful than the one that stands out

  10. Perception has driven evolution • And vice versa… • Guppies • Bright spots are sought out by females • Oh and prawns… • Lots of predators, go with lots of red dots! • Colonial vs. Solitary swallows

  11. Ahh but why oh swallow? • Can’t discriminate? • No difference in calls? • Sorta umm dumber? • It is that there is no difference in the calls of the young

  12. Sexual selection • WTF? • Runaway selection • Good genes • Sensory bias • Female preference shows up before the male characteristic

  13. Object recognition • Features and conjunctions • Pretty similar in people and pigeons • Might be telling about a problem in the field, the search for cryptic prey

  14. Search Image • Actual image? • Might be the rate • Reid and Shettleworth, 1992) found that it was probably the features • Langley has found that it may depend on prey type • If it is really hard to find food animals may slow down, especially if there is a predator nearby

  15. In sum • Perception has affected evolution • Evolution has affected perception

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