analysis by synthesis
A recognition process in which hypotheses are formulated and compared with input data until one of the hypotheses produces a match. This is how experienced crossword-puzzle solvers often identify ...
constructivism
Many cognitive psychologists now believe that humans learn most effectively where new information can be assimilated with previously held knowledge. This philosophy of learning is known as ...
direct perception
A theory of (mainly visual) perception, developed by the US psychologist James Jerome Gibson (1904–79) over a period of more than three decades, according to which the flux of light (called the ...
hollow-face illusion
A concave mask or mould of a human face that looks like a normal convex face when viewed from a distance of about 150 centimetres or more and seems to turn to follow the viewer's movements. The ...
impression formation
The rapid creation of a unified perception or understanding of the character or personality of another person on the basis of a large number of diverse characteristics. One of the main problems in ...
perceptual cycle
Neisser's model of perception as a cyclical process in which top-down processing and bottom-up processing drive each other in turn. To be purely data-driven we'd need to be mindless automatons; to be ...
top-down processing
Information processing that proceeds from information already stored in memory, especially general assumptions or presuppositions about the material being processed, as when a person forms a ...