Blog:

Perception

Perception is tricky to the brain. We use perception in order to differentiate our environments and surroundings. Video games have lots of examples of perception within the game. The artist makes object shades and sharper in the foreground and shades darker and less detailed in the background. The closer you get to an object in a game (Let’s just say any open world game such as Cyberpunk, Legend of Zelda or even horror games) the more it appears to be right it fronts of you. It’s funny because your entire computer screen is just a bunch of pixels and we found out how to create depth and value (realistically) in a video game.

Gestalt laws of perceptions based on proximity, similarity, continuation and common fate. In cyberpunk 2077, we may get close to a character and see all the details on their face, this in an example of proximity and similarities. Just like how we humans have similar characteristics of a person and knowing we are people, but we have different features the closer we get to each other. We see more of the detail on each person (nose, hair, mouth shape, dimples etc.)

Another great example of perception would be looking at the newer Tron movie. In the movie, they have lots of similar shapes and details around the open video game world. Everything was connected and showed continuation is the suits, cars, and lights.

My personal experience of perception happens daily. I can see if there is a stump in the ground so I can cross over it safely without tripping. At night my perception fades, because I can not see in the dark as well and everything glosses over into a pitch black darkness ( until my eyes get used to the dark.. I guess)

Goldstein, E. Bruce. Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience. Cengage, 2018.

Kendra Cherry, Mse. (2023) How does perception work?, Verywell Mind. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/perception-and-the-perceptual-process-2795839 (Accessed: 08 July 2023).

Blog #1 Attention

During this whole lesson, I was reminded of this kpop song by New Jeans called Attention. The song is based on getting attention from a crush. I think the song fits right along with our topic in this blog. Such as the cocktail party theme (based on attention), when someone calls your name in a crowded party it catches your attention. The same thing could happen if it were to be your favorite song. If someone were to play your favorite song in a club after hearing mediocre music, you may perk up and listen to the song… and enjoy yourself more.

Attention is based on stimuli and how it can reach a certain level of processing (Attention Theory). This theory could be selective as well by physical characteristics, sounds and syllables and messages. I’m pretty sure if someone you care about told you “I love you” for the very first time, it would capture your attention and your emotions would process faster. Think of a high school crush confesses in this situation.

My personal experience with attention theory would be: whenever someone calls my name very loudly. I could respond or I can choose to filter out and ignore. My name has been called out so much that I sometimes zone out. If someone were to throw a pen at me in the middle of my trance, I would snap to attention so fast. However, others can not say the same to this. There are many people that have disassociation disorders, that cause them to zone out. Nothing can really knock them out of their zone until they snap out of it themselves. Many people are known to say their name repeatedly or do a little shake to break out of their dissociative state. It contradicts.

Goldstein, B. (2021). Cognitive Psychology Connecting mind, Reasearch, and Everyday Experience (pp. 192-224). Cengage. 

Halajidan, H. (no date) Consciousness, attention, and conscious attention, Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-consciousness/201506/consciousness-attention-and-conscious-attention (Accessed: 08 July 2023).

Blog #3

Languages.

Before I joined the military, I spend my time learning languages as a kid. I could sit in my room for hours and study/ watch different shows in the language to practice my pronunciation. As a Cognitive psychologist (psycholinguistics), the way they view languages is based on functions of the brain. Each part of the brain has a function for speech comprehension and speech production.

As I got older and soon went into the military, I learned that it was more difficult to spend more time learning languages. My adult brain could not grasp and pertain any information with languages. However, I did move and live in another country for a few years and things have changed.

During my time overseas for the last few years, my family and friends did notice a slight change to my voice and the way that I speak. I was surrounded by many cultures and different type of languages that it affected my ability to speak English perfectly. It was almost as if I reversed my speech habits from native to a intermediate level of speaking.

However, I would mix up words while speaking English and my speech patterns began to fizzle out. I would find myself relearning grammar and basic English skills, because my brain suddenly forgot the right way of saying the perfect tense of a word.  My sentences were filled with “ums “and “hmmms” due to the phonemic restoration effect. “The phonemic restoration effect shows the influence of top-down processing of speech. We use the random noise to fill in the missing phonemes based on the context of the speech signal.” (Lesson 11) . It’s almost like I have to retrain my brain.

These were my cognitive experiences with languages.