Psychology and You. Dear Students,

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1 Psychology and You Dear Students, December, nd Edition Welcome to the second edition of Psychology and You, a newsletter covering basic psychology principles and scientific research, presented in a student-friendly way. In today s newsletter you will be exposed to some optical illusions that are bound to challenge your senses, and you will learn about the underlying mechanisms behind these illusions. In the last edition of Psychology and You we looked into the research investigating whether feeling in control could influence your stress responses. Brady (1958) found that monkeys who could control electric shocks developed ulcers while those who could Not control the same amounts of delivered shocks did Not develop ulcers. However, alternative explanations were suggested, questioning the validity of these findings.

2 Weiss (1971) investigated the impact of one additional factor in the relationship between electric shocks and ulcers in rats: the effect of predictability. Three groups of rats were formed: Rat 1 was put in a narrow testing box but received no electric shocks; Rat 2 was put in a narrow testing box and received a warning signal before each electric shock; Rat 3 was put in a narrow testing box and received electric shocks but received no warning signals before each shock. Rats 2 and 3 received the same amount of electric shocks and neither rat could do anything to avoid the shocks. Results showed that Rat 1 showed the least amount of ulceration. Rat 2 had an intermediate amount of ulceration, but Rat 3 had a significant amount of ulceration mainly because they could not predict the occurrence of the negative stimulus. Predictability therefore appears to play an important role in the relationship between electric shocks and ulcers. For more information, log on to: In your case as a student, if you perceive final exams as stressful, what would you prefer: knowing in advance the exam date? Or not knowing anything about the timing of the exam? According to Weiss (1971), you would be more likely to feel stressed if you were not informed of the date of the exam, since you would feel that you had no control over the occurrence of a stressful stimulus.

3 Perceptual Illusions Have some fun figuring out the following illusions: Visual Comprehension Read this sign as quickly as you can. Now read it again, and again. Are you sure you are reading it correctly?

4 Visual Illusion Is this a picture of an old woman or a young girl?

5 Optical Illusion Stare at the dot in the center and then move your head closer to and then farther away from the image.

6 Optical Illusion How many pandas can you see in this picture? Sensation and Perception In our daily life, we are constantly bombarded by stimuli around us such as the temperature of the room we are in, the lights in the room, the smell of a perfume, or someone talking in the other room. The term sensation refers to the process by which our senses collect information in our environment and send it to our brain. We sense stimuli in our environment through our five senses; touch, taste, sight, sound, and smell. Perception in turn refers to the process of interpreting sensations and making sense of the world around us.

7 Given that we tend to be surrounded by hundreds of stimuli at any one given time, we tend to automatically organize this information into groups. This process falls under the Gestalt principle which states that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For example, if you see the 5 dots below, You tend to automatically group them together as a row of dots, rather than perceiving them separately as a dot, a dot, a dot, a dot, and a dot. This process is time efficient and also less taxing on your perceptual efforts. There are four types of Gestalt principles of grouping: similarity, proximity, continuity, and closure. In similarity and proximity, we tend to group stimuli together depending on how similar they are or how close to each other they are. For example, in the first picture, you tend to perceive the image as 2 rows of blue dots and 2 rows of black dots. In continuity we tend to perceive stimuli as forming a continuous pattern as we would in the third image for example which we tend to perceive as an X rather than a mere series of dots. Similarly, in closure, we tend to complete the patterns of familiar objects automatically as we would in the fourth images which we easily perceive as a circle and a square.

8 For more information, log on to Below are some questions to test yourself: 1- True or false: perception takes place before the brain is able to process the stimuli that it senses. 2- Which school of thought subscribed to rules of organization that describe how the brain combines and organizes information into meaningful perception? 3-True or False: according to the continuity rule, we prefer disjointed stimuli to continuous stimuli. The answers will be provided in the next Edition of Psychology and You! I wish you all a lovely break and a fresh new start in January Mona Moussa, Licensed Psychologist Student Counselor