How a person perceives. Three main ways of perceiving the world. Sanoka and Sulman's experiment on color ratios

By itself, the real manifested world is the same, regardless of how it is perceived. various forms life. But all kinds of beings and even individual individuals, except for the basis of this world, which is the same for all forms of life, perceive mainly those of its facets that correspond to their aspirations and needs. If we are talking about a person, then we must take into account his worldview, which largely determines not only the spectrum of preferential perception of some facets of the reality of the world, but also the attitude towards these facets. At the same time, a person is sure that his perception of the world and his attitude to this world are adequate to the circumstances. And even if you try to explain to him that he perceives reality in a distorted way, then, most likely, nothing will come of it - he will not accept the explanation, because it does not fit into his worldview logic. Thus, the main reason lies in his worldview, which each person has his own map of assessing the significance of the world. The fact is that each significance, for a person who perceives it, has its own individual sound, hence the worldview, which includes the reflected significances of this world, can be compared with an orchestra, which for each person not only differs in the instruments included in it, but also in its own individual works that he prefers to perform. And, besides, the same significance for different people is not of the same value, which in many respects is also connected with the worldview. From this we can conclude: the same manifested world, having certain significances, various people perceived and evaluated differently. And depending on the goals, the realization of which they dedicate their lives, the same objects or the relationship between them will be perceived and evaluated by people differently. And, besides, the worldview can be compared with puzzles containing elements that have certain color and forms, then each person's worldview is his own individual puzzle, which is formed into his own individual picture.

Each significance of the worldview sounds at its own frequency, and a person, depending on this, strives mainly for what is consonant with him. He will perceive the reality of the world from the side that is consonant with his worldview, and will act in the external world in the way that this inner sounding of him allows him. Therefore, each person has his own truth, even the criminal. And not all criminals will agree that their truth is wrong and that they are criminals. In order for them to see that their truth is defective, it is necessary that there be a part of their worldview that is free or independent of their truth. And only from the standpoint of this free part can they realize they are wrong. But this small part can be so insignificant that a person, even knowing that he is doing something destructive, will not be able to resist his individual destructive truth. But more often it happens that a person realizes the destructiveness of his truth from the standpoint of a mind that knows the generally accepted assessments of the significance of the world and can even convincingly talk about their values for listeners, but when the time comes to act, a person is at the mercy of his worldview. Thus, a worldview is not the sum of information received by the mind as a result of training, or lectures, or soul-saving conversations held with a person, because the worldview is rooted in the subconscious. Then how is a worldview formed? First, the worldview must necessarily have a genetic basis, and when it is not enough, then the idea of exclusivity can be taken as the basis. Every person, if not explicitly, openly, then at a deeper level, considers himself or wants to be exceptional, even if not in everything, then at least in something. Well, then a myth unfolds, confirming his exclusivity, which asserts either the exclusivity of the idea that a person follows, or the exclusivity of the goal to which a person devotes his whole life, or the exclusivity of the person himself, for example, in connection with his social status.

When we talk about the genetic basis of the worldview, then we are talking about the hereditary predispositions of a person, on the basis of which ideas can be formed in the future - carriers of the meaning of his life. A person's worldview always has its own history and its heroes, who, when forming a worldview, are an example of both the relationship with external reality and the attitude towards oneself. This story usually consists of two parts - his personal and the history of his people. And its truthfulness or tendentiousness is not at all important, it is important that it brings up in a person his certain significance, which makes him a non-trivial personality.

The history of any nation, and the personal history of each person, is multifaceted. But very often, when describing their history, historians take its best facet and even exaggerate it, and present such a still life they have received as a real story. And if it lacks the necessary greatness and heroism, then myths are taken to the rescue, for example, the biblical Old Testament. At the same time, when describing the history of other peoples, they consider them based on all sorts of negative examples, and also exaggerate them, and the times of the reign of Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, and many other examples can be an example of this.

A formed worldview is not only glasses through which a person looks at the reality of the world and his place in it, but it also determines the configuration of a person’s personality, his creative possibilities and the possibilities of his spiritual growth.

Have you ever wondered how we see objects? How we snatch them from the whole visual variety environment with sensory stimuli? And how do we interpret what we see?

Visual processing is the ability to comprehend images, allowing humans (and even animals) to process and interpret the meaning of the information we receive through our vision.

Visual perception plays an important role in everyday life, helping in learning and communicating with other people. At first glance, perception seems to be easy. In fact, behind the supposed ease lies a complex process. Understanding how we interpret what we see helps us design visual information.

Balanced infographics involve the smart use of visual presentation (e.g., charts, graphs, icons, images), the appropriate choice of colors and fonts, an appropriate layout and sitemap, etc. And we should not forget about the data, its sources and topics, which is equally important. But today we will not talk about them. We will focus on the visual side of information design.

Psychologist Richard Gregory (1970) was convinced that visual perception depends on top-down processing.

Top-down processing, or concept-driven processing, occurs when we form an idea of the big picture from small details. We make assumptions about what we see based on expectations, beliefs, prior knowledge, and previous experience. In other words, we are making a deliberate guess.

Gregory's theory is supported by numerous evidence and experiments. One of the most famous examples is the hollow mask effect:

When the mask is turned to the hollow side, you see a normal face

Gregory used Charlie Chaplin's spinning mask to explain how we perceive the mask's hollow surface as bulges based on our understanding of the world. According to our previous knowledge of the structure of the face, the nose should protrude. As a result, we subconsciously reconstruct a hollow face and see a normal one.

How do we perceive visual information according to Gregory's theory?

1. Almost 90% of the information coming through the eyes does not reach the brain. Thus, the brain uses previous experience or existing knowledge to construct reality.

2. The visual information that we perceive is connected to previously stored information about the world that we have received empirically.

3. Based on various examples The theory of top-down information processing implies that pattern recognition is based on contextual information.

Information Design Tip #1 from Gregory's Visual Assumption Theory: Supplement the data with an appropriate theme and design; use a meaningful title to set key expectations; support the visuals with expressive text.

2. Sanoka and Sulman's experiment on color ratios

According to numerous psychological studies, combinations of uniform colors are more harmonious and pleasant. While contrasting colors are usually associated with chaos and aggression.

In 2011, Thomas Sanocki and Noah Sulman conducted an experiment to study how color matching affects short-term memory - our ability to remember what we just saw.

Four different experiments were carried out using harmonious and disharmonious color palettes. In each trial, the participants in the experiment were shown two palettes: first one, then the second, which had to be compared with the first. The palettes were shown with a certain time interval and several times in random combinations. The subjects had to determine whether the palettes were the same or different. Also, the participants of the experiment had to evaluate the harmony of the palette - a pleasant / unpleasant combination of colors.

Below are 4 examples of palettes that were shown to the participants in the experiment:

How do colors affect our visual perception according to the theory of Sanoka and Sulman?

People remember better those palettes in which colors are combined with each other.
People remember palettes containing only three or fewer colors more than those with four or more colors.
The contrast of adjacent colors affects how well a person remembers color scheme. In other words, this means that the color difference between context and background can enhance our ability to focus on context.
We can remember quite a large number of color combinations at the same time.

Thus, the results of the experiment indicate that people are better able to absorb and remember more information, perceiving images with contrast, but harmonious colors, preferably with a combination of three or less colors.

Information design tip #2 based on Sanoka and Sulman's experiment: use as few different colors as possible in complex content; increase the contrast between visual information and the background; choose topics from harmonious combination shades; use disharmonious color combinations wisely.

Binocular rivalry occurs when we see two different images in the same place. One of them dominates, and the second is suppressed. Dominance alternates at regular intervals. So, instead of seeing a combination of two images at the same time, we perceive them in turn, as two competing images for dominance.

In 1998, Frank Tong, Ken Nakayama, J. Thomas Vaughan, and Nancy Kanwisher concluded in an experiment that if you look at two different images at the same time, there is a binocular rivalry effect.

Four trained people participated in the experiment. As stimuli, they were shown images of a face and a house through glasses with red and green filters. In the process of perception, there was an irregular alternation of signals from the two eyes. The stimulus-specific responses of the subjects were monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

How do we perceive visual information according to Tong's experiment?

According to MRI data, all subjects showed active binocular rivalry when they were shown dissimilar pictures.
In our visual system, the binocular rivalry effect occurs during the processing of visual information. In other words, for a short period of time, when the eyes look at two dissimilar images located close to each other, we are not able to determine what we are actually seeing.

David Carmel, Michael Arcaro, Sabine Kastner and Uri Hasson conducted a separate experiment and found that binocular rivalry can be manipulated using stimulus parameters such as color, brightness, contrast , shape, size, spatial frequency or speed.

Manipulating the contrast in the example below causes the left eye to perceive the dominant image, while the right eye perceives the suppressed one:

How does contrast affect our visual perception according to the experiment?

Manipulation of contrast leads to the fact that a strong stimulus is dominant large quantity time.
We will see the merging of the dominant image and part of the suppressed image until the effect of binocular rivalry occurs.

Information Design Tip #3 Based on the Binocular Rivalry Effect: N do not overload the content; use themed icons; highlight key points.

4. The influence of typography and aesthetics on the reading process

Did you know that typography can affect a person's mood and ability to make decisions?

Typography is the design and use of fonts as a means of visual communication. Nowadays, typography has moved from the field of typography to the digital sphere. Summarizing all possible definitions of the term, we can say that the purpose of typography is to improve the visual perception of the text.

In their experiment, Kevin Larson (Microsoft) and Rosalind Picard (MIT) found out how typography affects the mood of the reader and his ability to solve problems.

They conducted two studies, each with 20 participants. Participants were divided into two equal groups and given 20 minutes to read an issue of The New Yorker magazine on a tablet. One group got text with poor typography, the other with good typography (examples are given below):

During the experiment, participants were interrupted and asked how much time they thought had passed since the start of the experiment. According to a psychological study (Weybrew, 1984), people who find what they do enjoyable and are in a positive mood report spending much less time reading.

After reading the texts, the participants in the experiment were asked to solve a problem with a candle. They had to attach the candle to the wall in such a way that the wax would not drip, using push pins.

How do we perceive good typography and its impact?

Both groups of participants incorrectly estimated time spent reading. This means that reading was an exciting activity for them.
Participants who were given text with good typography significantly underestimated reading time compared to participants who were given text with poor typography. This means that the first text seemed more interesting to them.
None of the participants who read the text with bad typography could solve the candle problem. While less than half of the second group coped with the task. Thus, good typography affected the ability to solve problems.

Information design tip #4, based on Larsen and Picard's typographic influence experiment: use readable fonts; separate text from images; do not overlay pictures or icons on text; Leave enough space between paragraphs.

5. Perception of the essence of the scene according to Castellano and Hendersen

Have you ever wondered what the phrase “one picture says more than a thousand words” really means? Or why do we perceive images better than text?

This does not mean that the image tells us all the necessary information. It's just that a person has the ability to grasp the main elements of a scene at a glance. When we fix our gaze on an object or objects, we form general idea and recognize the meaning of the scene.

What is the perception of the essence of the scene? According to Nissan Research & Development researcher Ronald A. Rensink:

“Scene gist perception, or scene perception, is the visual perception of the environment as an observer at any given time. It includes not only the perception of individual objects, but also such parameters as their relative position, as well as the idea that other types of objects are encountered.

Imagine that you see some objects, which are two signboards with symbols, and a diagram symbolizing a fork and indicating two different paths. Most likely, the following scene appeared before you - you are in the middle of the jungle / forest / highway and there are two paths ahead that lead to two different destinations. Based on this scene, we know that we need to make a decision and choose one path.

In 2008, Monica S. Castelhano of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and John M. Henderson of the University of Edinburgh studied the effect of color on the ability to perceive the essence of a scene in an experiment.

The experiment included three different trials. The students were shown several hundred photographs (of natural or man-made objects) under different conditions for each test. Each image was shown in a specific sequence and point in time. Participants were asked to answer "yes" or "no" when they saw the details that matched the scene.

Normal and blurry photos were presented with color and monochrome, respectively.

To determine the role of colors in the perception of the essence of the scene, anomalous colors were used for the following photographic examples:

How do we perceive visual information based on the findings of Castellano and Hendersen?

The subjects grasped the essence of the scene and the target object in seconds. This means that people can quickly understand the meaning of a normal scene.
The subjects matched the color pictures faster than the black-and-white ones. Thus, color helps us understand the picture better.
In general, colors determine the structure of objects. How better color corresponds to how we usually perceive the world, the easier it is for us to understand the meaning of the image.

Information design tip #5 based on Castellano and Hendersen's scene perception studies: use appropriate icons or pictures to represent data; arrange content in the correct order; use familiar colors for important objects.

conclusions

Understanding how people perceive visual information helps improve infographics. Summarizing the conclusions of the considered experiments, we bring to your attention the key tips for the design of visual information:

1. Layout and design

The theme and design must match the information.
Don't overload your page's infographic.
Use themed icons.
Arrange content in the proper order.
Use headings to set key expectations.

2. Video sequence

Visual effects should accompany the text.
Show important numbers on graphs and charts.
Use correct pictures and icons to represent your data.

Reduce the number of colors for complex content.
Increase the contrast between important visual information and the background.
Use harmonious colors Topics.
Use disharmonious colors wisely.
Use regular colors for important objects.

4. Typography

Choose readable fonts.
Leave enough white space between the title and the text or image.
Do not overlay pictures or icons on text.
Set sufficient spaces between characters.

Now that you know the ins and outs of creating beautiful and compelling infographics, it's up to you!

figure and background. As psychologists say everything that a person perceives, he perceives as a figure against a background. A figure is something that is clearly, clearly perceived, what a person describes, reporting what he perceives (sees, hears, etc.). But at the same time, any figure is necessarily perceived against a certain background. The background is something indistinct, amorphous, unstructured. For example, we will hear our name even in a noisy company - it usually immediately stands out as a figure in the sound background. Psychology calls, however, not to be limited to everyday examples and to test your statements in experiments.

Upon visual presentation, as established, the status of a figure acquires a surface with clear boundaries, which has a smaller area. A figure combines image elements that are similar in size, shape, symmetrical, moving in the same direction, located closest to each other, etc. Consciousness perceives a figure by grouping image elements according to the proximity factor. The dashes in figure 18 are perceived as being grouped in columns of two, and not just as dashes on a white background.

Rice. 18. Grouping by Proximity Factor

If the subject is given different messages to the left and right ear and asked to repeat one of them aloud, then the subject easily copes with this task. But at that time he is not aware of another message, does not remember it, cannot say what it was about, not even in what language it was spoken. At best, he can tell whether there was music or speech, whether a female or male voice spoke. Psychologists call a unique message in such an experiment shaded; it is, as it were, in the shadow, in the background. Nevertheless, the subject somehow reacts to this message. For example, he is immediately aware of the appearance of his own name in it. Here is one of the experiments confirming the perception of a shaded message. In the repeated message, sentences containing homonymous words are given, for example: “He found the KEY in the clearing”, and in the shaded message for some subjects the word “WATER” is included, and for other subjects - “DOOR”. Then the subjects are asked to find out from the many sentences presented to them those that they repeated. Among the proposals presented are: "He found a spring in a clearing" and "He found a master key in a clearing." It turned out that the first subjects confidently identify the sentence about the spring, and the second ones just as confidently identify the sentence about the master key. And, of course, the subjects of both groups could not reproduce anything from the shaded message, that is, they did not remember anything about it.

The relativity of the status of the figure and the background can be shown by the example of ambiguous drawings (they are also called dual images). In these drawings, the figure and the background can change places; as a figure, that which, with a different understanding of the drawing, is understood as a background, can be perceived. Turning a figure into a background and vice versa is called restructuring. So, in the well-known drawing by the Danish psychologist E. Rubin (see Fig. 19), one can see either two black profiles on a white background, or a white vase on a black background. Note: if a person is aware of both images in such an ambiguous drawing, then, looking at the drawing, he will never be able to see both images at the same time, and if he tries to see only one of the two images (for example, a vase), then after some time will inevitably see another (profiles).

Rice. 19. Rubin figure: two black profiles on a white background or a white vase on a black background

Paradoxical as it may sound, but, realizing what is perceived, a person always simultaneously realizes that he has perceived more than he is currently aware of. The laws of perception are experimentally established principles according to which a conscious figure stands out from the multitude of stimuli received by the brain.

As a figure, something that has some meaning for a person is usually singled out, which is connected with the past experience, assumptions and expectations of the perceiving person, with his intentions and desires. This has been shown in many experimental studies, but specific results have significantly changed the view of the nature and process of perception.

The law of aftereffect of figure and background. Constancy of perception.A person prefers to perceive (be aware of) what he has previously seen. This manifests itself in a series of laws. The law of the aftereffect of figure and background says: what a person once perceived as a figure tends to aftereffect, i.e., to re-singling out as a figure; what was once perceived as background tends to continue to be perceived as background. Let us consider some experiments demonstrating the manifestation of this law.

The subjects were presented with meaningless black-and-white images. (Such images are easy to make for anyone: on a small piece of white paper, you just need to draw some meaningless stripes in black ink so that the ratio of the volumes of black and white color on a piece of paper was approximately the same.) In most cases, the subjects perceived the white field as a figure, and the black field as a background, i.e., they saw the image as white on black. However, with some effort, they could perceive the presented image and how black figure on a white background. In the preliminary ("training") series of the experiment, the subjects were presented with several hundred such images, each for about 4 seconds. At the same time, they were told what color image (white or black) they should see as a figure. The subjects tried "with all their might" to see exactly the image as the figure that the experimenter pointed to. In the “testing” series of the experiment, which was carried out a few days later, they were presented with both new drawings and images from the previous series, and they had to perceive without any effort what was presented as it is perceived by itself, and report which field - white or black - see as a figure. It turned out that the subjects tended to perceive old images in the same way as they did in the training series (although basically they did not even recognize these images), i.e., re-select the same figure and not select the same background.

We present to the subject for a split second a set of stimuli (these can be images or words, sounds or instrument readings, etc.). Its task is to recognize the presented stimuli. Some of them he recognizes unmistakably. In some he makes mistakes, i.e., he selects the wrong (from the point of view of the instruction) figure. It turns out that upon repeated presentation of stimuli in which he had previously made a mistake, the subject more often than not accidentally makes mistakes again. Usually he repeats the same mistakes that he made earlier (“the figure aftereffects”), sometimes he makes different mistakes in a row (“the background aftereffects”). The phenomenon of repetition of perceptual errors found in different experiments is especially unexpected. Indeed, in order to repeat a mistake when presenting the same stimulus, the subject must first recognize that the presented stimulus is the same, remember that in response to its presentation he has already made such and such a mistake, i.e., in essence, his recognize and then repeat the mistake.

In some dual images, a person cannot see the second image in any way, even despite the experimenter's direct prompts. But here the subjects draw a picture that includes given image, or describe in detail what they saw, or express associations that arise in connection with the picture.

In all such cases, the responses of the subjects usually contain elements related to the meaning of the picture, which they are not aware of. Such a manifestation of the unconscious background manifests itself when the task or object of perception changes.

The law of constancy of perception also speaks of the influence of past experience on perception: a person considers familiar objects around him as unchanged. We move away from objects or approach them - they do not change in size in our perception. (However, if objects are far enough away, they still appear small, for example, when we look at them from the window of an airplane.) The mother's face, which changes depending on lighting conditions, distance, cosmetics, hats, etc., is recognizable child as something unchanged already in the second month of life. We perceive white paper as white even in moonlight, although it reflects about as much light as black coal in the sun. When we look at a bicycle wheel at an angle, our eye actually sees an ellipse, but we are aware of this wheel as being round. In the minds of people, the world as a whole is more stable and stable than it seems to be in reality.

Constancy of perception is largely a manifestation of the influence of past experience. We know the wheels are round and the paper is white, and that's why we see them that way. When there is no knowledge about the real shapes, sizes and colors of objects, then the phenomenon of constancy does not manifest itself. One ethnographer describes: once in Africa, he, along with local resident- a pygmy came out of the forest. Cows were grazing in the distance. The pygmy had never seen cows from afar before, and therefore, to the amazement of the ethnographer, mistook them for ants - the constancy of perception was broken.

Influence on the perception of expectations and assumptions. Another principle of perception: a person perceives the world depending on what he expects to perceive. The process of selecting a figure is influenced by people's assumptions about what can be presented to them. Much more often than we imagine, we see what we expect to see, hear what we expect to hear, and so on. will feel like the softness of rubber as long as the subject is convinced that the object given to him is a rubber toy. If an image is presented that can equally well be understood as the number 13 or as the letter B, then the subjects without any doubt perceive this sign as 13 if it appears in a series of numbers, and as the letter B if it appears in a series of letters. .

A person easily fills in the gaps in the incoming information and isolates the message from the noise if he assumes or knows in advance what will be presented to him. Perceptual errors are very often caused by deceived expectations. If we show the subject for a fraction of a second an image of a face without eyes - as a rule, he will see a face with eyes and will confidently prove that there really were eyes in the image. We clearly hear an unintelligible word in noise if it is clear from the context. In the experiment, the subjects were shown slides so out of focus that real identification of the image was impossible. Each subsequent presentation slightly improved focus. It turned out: the subjects who, at the first presentations, put forward erroneous hypotheses about what they were shown, they could not correctly identify the image even with such image quality, when no one makes mistakes at all. If you show two circles on the screen 4–5 times in a row with different diameters, and each time on the left - with a diameter, for example, 22 mm, and on the right - with a diameter of 28 mm, and then present two equal circles with a diameter of 25 mm, then the vast majority of the subjects already involuntarily expect to see unequal circles, and therefore do not see ( do not realize) them as equals. (This effect will be even more pronounced if a person with his eyes closed first put balls of different volume or weight in his left and right hands, and then put equal balls.)

Georgian psychologist 3. I. Khodzhava presented the subjects who knew German and Russian with a list of German words. At the end of this list was a word that could be read either as a meaningless letter combination written in Latin letters, or as a meaningful word written in Cyrillic. All subjects continued to read this combination of letters in German (i.e., they were assigned to the class of meaningless, but German words), not noticing at all a meaningful variant of its reading as a Russian word. The American J. Bagby showed children transparencies through a stereoscope in such a way that different eyes saw a different image. The subjects (Mexicans and Americans) looked at two images at once, one typical of American culture (a baseball game, a blonde girl, etc.), and the other one typical of Mexican culture (a bullfight, a black-haired girl, etc.). ). The corresponding photographs were similar in shape, contour of the main masses, structure and distribution of light and shadows. Although some subjects noticed that they were presented with two pictures, the majority saw only one - the one that is more typical of their experience.

So, a person perceives information depending on his expectations. But if his expectations are not justified, then he tries to find some explanation for this, and therefore his consciousness pays the most attention to the new and unexpected. A sharp, unexpected sound causes the head to turn towards the sound, even in newborn babies. Preschool children take longer to look at new images than those they were previously introduced to, or choose new toys to play with, and not those that they were previously shown. In all people, the reaction time to rare and unexpected signals is longer than to frequent and expected ones, and the time to recognize unexpected signals is also longer. Consciousness, in other words, works longer on rare and unexpected signals. A new and varied environment generally increases mental stress.

Immutable information is not held in consciousness, so a person is not able to perceive and realize unchanging information for a long time. Unchanging information quickly enough becomes expected and even against the will of the subjects slips out of their consciousness. A stabilized image that does not change in brightness and color (for example, with the help of contact lenses to which a light source is attached, thus moving along with the eyes), with all the effort of the subject, ceases to be perceived already 1–3 s after the start of presentation. A constant irritant of moderate intensity, acting on the ear (constant or strictly periodic noise) or on the skin (clothing, wrist watch), very soon ceases to be noticed. The color background with prolonged fixation loses its color and begins to look gray. Close attention to any unchanging or evenly swaying object disrupts the normal course of consciousness and contributes to the emergence of so-called altered states - meditative and hypnotic. There is a special hypnotization technique by fixing a point on the ceiling or wall, as well as fixing the gaze on an object located at a distance of about 25 cm from the subject's eyes.

Repeated repetition of the same word or group of words leads to a subjective feeling of loss of the meaning of these words. Say a word aloud repeatedly - sometimes a dozen repetitions are enough to give rise to a specific feeling of losing the meaning of this word. Many mystical techniques are built on this technique: shamanistic rituals, repetition of verbal formulas (“Lord, have mercy on me a sinner” in Orthodoxy, “la ilaha il-la-l-lahu” (i.e. “there is no god but Allah”) in Islam), etc. Repeated pronunciation of such phrases leads not only to the loss of their meaning, but also, as Eastern mystics say, to a complete “emptying of consciousness”, which contributes to the emergence of special mystical states. The constant talking of the doctor, repeating the same formulas, contributes to hypnotic suggestion. The monotonous-monotonous architectural environment has a lulling effect on people.

Automated activities (walking, reading, playing musical instruments, swimming, etc.) due to their uniformity are also not perceived by the person performing this action, they are not kept in consciousness. Row challenging tasks, requiring the greatest accuracy and muscular coordination (ballet dancing, boxing, marksmanship, fast typing), are successfully performed only when they are brought to automatism and therefore are practically not perceived by consciousness. The "psychic satiety effect" was discovered: the subject is not able to perform a monotonous task without variations for even a short time and is forced to change - sometimes imperceptibly - the task he is solving.

With the scarcity of external influences, a person develops phenomena similar to fatigue: erroneous actions increase, emotional tone decreases, drowsiness develops, etc. In 1956, perhaps the most famous experiment was carried out with a prolonged lack of information (sensory isolation): for $ 20 per day (which at that time was a very significant amount), the volunteer subjects lay on the bed, their hands were inserted into special cardboard tubes so that there were as few tactile stimuli as possible, they were put on special glasses that let only diffused light, auditory the irritants were masked by the incessant noise of the running air conditioner. The subjects were fed, watered, they could take care of their toilet as needed, but the rest of the time they were as motionless as possible. The hopes of the subjects that they would have a good rest in such conditions did not come true. The participants in the experiment could not concentrate on anything - thoughts eluded them. More than 80% of the subjects became victims of visual hallucinations: the walls shook, the floor rotated, the body and mind split in two, the eyes became unbearably painful from bright light, etc. None of them lasted more than six days, and most demanded to stop the experiment after three day.

The role of meaningfulness in the selection of a figure. A special role in highlighting the figure is played by its meaningfulness for the perceiving person. A doctor examining an x-ray, a chess player studying a new position in the opening, a hunter recognizing birds by their flight from distances that are unbelievable for an ordinary person - all of them react by no means to meaningless pictures and see in them something completely different than people who cannot read an x-ray, play chess or hunt. Senseless situations are difficult and painful for all people. Man tries to make sense of everything. In general, we usually perceive only what we understand. If a person suddenly hears the walls talking, then in most cases he will not believe that the walls can really talk, and will look for some reasonable explanation for this: the presence of a hidden person, a tape recorder, etc., or even decide that he lost his mind.

Meaningful words are recognized much faster and more accurately than meaningless sets of letters when they are visually presented. In an experiment with a shaded message, when different texts are fed to different ears, it turned out that out of two messages, the person himself always chooses the one that has some meaning that is understandable to him, and, as already mentioned, he practically does not notice the message for which he no need to follow. But the most unexpected thing: if a meaningful message is given first to one ear, then to the other, then the subject, despite all his efforts to strictly follow the message given to one particular ear, is forced to shifts his attention to a meaningful message, in whichever ear it is given. In part, this effect can be demonstrated when visual information is presented. Please read the following text, paying attention only to the words in bold:

parallelepiped eyes racer perceive cruise surrounding information upside down horseman. However, we again and see the world stupidity in normal table orientation gardener. If put on automobile glasses, helicopter overturning falling jack image, shellfish then after boots long WORKOUT please HUMAN astronomy CAPABLE deep sea AGAIN deftly SEE THE WORLD sail SO Friday HOW WE DO IT Thursday used to curdled milk USUALLY root SEE.

When meaningful text moves from one font to another, it usually feels like a glitch, and sometimes an attempt to read text written in a different font.

Making sense of the world has a lot to do with the use of language. Therefore, our perception of the world changes depending on what words we call what we see. People who speak different languages perceive the world slightly differently because different languages describe the world in slightly different ways. It is no coincidence that Russian artists depict spring in the form of a charming girl (the word "spring" in Russian is feminine), and German artists in the form of a beautiful young man (in accordance with the gender of the word "spring" in German). Russian-speaking subjects, for example, are more likely to separate blue and light blue in their perception than English-speaking subjects, who use the same word “blue” to designate these two colors.

Perception as a process of testing hypotheses. A huge number of errors that we make in perception are not due to the fact that we see or hear something incorrectly - our senses work almost perfectly, but to the fact that we misunderstand it. However, it is thanks to our ability to comprehend the perceived that we make discoveries and perceive much more than what is perceived by our senses. Past experience and foresight of the future expand the information received by our senses. We use this information to test hypotheses about what is in front of us. Perception– it is an active process of obtaining information to test hypotheses about the world around us.

It's not surprising that perception is closely connected with movement, action. It is obvious that movement is necessary to obtain the necessary information. Any object must be in the field of view in order to be seen; it must be picked up in order to feel, etc. Although the mechanisms governing such movements are very complex, we will not consider them here. However, the role of movement in perception is not only (and even not so much) in this. First of all, we note the micromovements of the sense organs. They contribute to the retention in the mind of unchanging stimuli, which, as we remember, tend to quickly disappear from consciousness. A person constantly shifts the points of skin sensitivity: tremor of the fingers, hands, torso, which does not allow stabilizing muscle sensations: involuntary micro-movements of the eye make it impossible to keep a look at given point etc. All this contributes to such a change in external stimulation that what is perceived is preserved in consciousness, but at the same time the constancy of the perceived objects is not disturbed.

Rice. 20. Illusion of the size of the visible object: plan of the Ames room

However, the main role of action in perception is to test emerging hypotheses. Let's consider a corresponding example. American psychologist A. Ames designed special room(it is called the "Ames room"), the far wall of which is located not at right angles to the side walls, as is usually the case, but at a very acute angle to one wall and, accordingly, at an obtuse angle to the other (see Fig. 20). Thanks to the false perspective created, among other things, by the patterns on the walls, the observer, who was sitting at viewing device, perceived this room as rectangular. If in the far (beveled) sharp corner such a room to put an object or a stranger, they seem to be drastically reduced in size. This illusion persists even if the observer is informed of the true shape of the room. However, as soon as the observer performs some action in this room (touch the wall with a stick, throw the ball into the opposite wall), then the illusion disappears - the room begins to be seen in accordance with its real form. (The role of past experience is evidenced by the fact that the illusion does not arise at all if the observer sees a person who is well known to him, for example, a husband or wife, a son, etc.) So, a person forms a hypothesis about what he perceives (for example, sees or hears), and with the help of his actions checks the validity of this hypothesis. Our actions correct our hypotheses, and with them our perceptions.

Studies show that the inability to make movements does not allow learning to perceive the world. However, such experiments that destroy the process of perception, of course, were not carried out on children. Kittens and baby monkeys were convenient objects for the experimenters. Here is a description of one such experiment. Newborn kittens most of the time were in the dark, where they could move freely. In the light, they were placed in special baskets that rotated like a carousel. The kitten, in whose basket holes were made for paws, and which, therefore, could rotate the carousel, subsequently had no visual defects. The kitten, which sat passively in the basket and could not make any movements in it, subsequently made serious mistakes in distinguishing the shape of objects.

In this section, we focused on the activity of perception as a mental process. A number of important, but particular issues (for example, the perception of time, movement, depth, speech, color, etc.) remained outside the scope of our consideration. Those wishing to become more familiar with the psychology of perception should refer to the specialized literature.

Since childhood, meeting with funny pictures - upside down drawings, in which you can see the face of an ancient old woman, then a young lady, motionless pictures in which, despite the static nature, movement is felt, we are used to the fact that our vision is easy to deceive. But the sense of time? Are we deceived here too? It turns out that the perception of time also leaves many questions and opens up a large field for experimentation.

Optical illusions teach us that from the point of view of human existence, it is important not only what is, but also how we interpret this reality. Moreover, it is desirable to go a little ahead of reality, to predict the development of events, to plan your own actions. The brain has the technology to do this based on sensory data and quickly enough, but speed is sometimes achieved at the cost of delusion: we see something that is not there. Time-related illusions are less well known, but they also have the same effect: the corrective work of the brain in processing data received from the senses leads to rather strange sensations.

frozen arrow

Can time stop? For the human psyche - certainly. This phenomenon is called the Greek term "chronostasis", which, in fact, is translated as "stopping time." As an illustration, the example with the second hand is usually given. Such an effect has long been noticed: if the human eye accidentally falls on the watch dial, then the second hand seems to freeze in place for some time, and its subsequent “tick” seems to be longer than all the others. Whatever physicists say about the nature of time, for a person it is primarily not a theoretical concept, but a sensation. Science explains the phenomenon of chronostasis with the peculiarities of human vision. The fact is that our eyes constantly make saccades - small, quick movements, as if scanning the world around us. But we hardly feel them. To verify this, it is enough to conduct a small experiment - go to the mirror and first focus your eyes on, say, the right eye, and then on the left. Or vice versa. What a miracle: in the mirror, the eyes remain motionless! Where is the movement by which we shifted our gaze from one eye to another? And it is hidden from us (although an outside observer will confirm that the eyes were moving). If we perceived visual reality as a video camera perceives it, that is, continuously, non-discretely, then the world around us would be seen as blurry. Instead, the brain suppresses the information received by the optic nerve during the saccade, prolonging in time the sharp image that was received before it began. Chronostasis is another way to feel this feature of vision. Bumping into some new movement (in this case movement of the second hand), the brain makes a freeze frame for us, and then quickly brings the sense of time back to normal.

A similar effect, already tested in laboratories, can be observed in experiments with an alien image. For example, with a certain frequency for a certain identical period of time, we are shown an image of an apple. And suddenly, among these pictures, a drawing with a shoe appears, and it is shown to us exactly as much as an apple is shown. But at the same time, there is a clear feeling that the shoe was shown longer. The brain clings to the new and gives us the opportunity to consider a foreign inclusion. The myth about the 25th frame, which supposedly cannot be seen when watching a movie, has long been debunked, but which only affects the subconscious. And although the inertia of human vision is such that we really do not see individual frames, but only a smoothly moving picture at a speed of 24 frames / s, the inserted single frame is read, and not subconsciously.

Does fear stop time?

There is a popular belief that the brain increases the resolution of time perception in critical, dangerous situations. Everyone must have heard stories about soldiers who saw how slowly, right before their eyes, a shell bursts, or about victims of car accidents, in front of whom the scene of the accident unfolded in slow motion, “in rapid speed”, as filmmakers say.

To test the hypothesis about the feeling of time slowing down at the moment of danger, two American neurophysiologists - Chess Stetson and David Eagleman - set in 2007 interesting experiment(See sidebar “Will time slow down?”). For the experience, they rented a tower in an amusement park, from a 31-meter height of which you can fall unscathed: at the bottom there is a safety net. The results of the experiment did not confirm the hypothesis. True, the question remains - does participation in the attraction really create the necessary level of stress, because the subjects knew in advance that nothing threatens their lives and health. However, of course, no one will dare to send people to meet with a real mortal danger.

Will time slow down?

The subjects in the experiment of Stetson and Eagleman were given special wrist displays with a rough resolution: one depicted figure fit into a field of 8 × 8 luminous dots. The figure was shown alternately in a negative, then in a positive image, and thus all the dots were lit in due time. Experimentally, the display frequency was brought to such a threshold at which the subject no longer distinguished individual displays, and saw in front of him only a luminous display due to the inertia of vision. The idea of Stetson and Eagleman was that while the subject was flying from the tower, he would experience stress and then perhaps be able to distinguish the alternating images of numbers on the screen again.

Light from the past

But the same Stetson and Eagleman managed to do the work, which significantly advanced science along the path of understanding temporary illusions. To explain its meaning, first you need to remember that a person receives information through different sensory channels and not all of these channels work with the same speed and efficiency. For example, in poor light conditions, vision deteriorates and visual information processing slows down. And in normal light, tactile data takes longer to travel through the nerve channels than visual. Chess Stetson gave this example: a man walks through the forest, steps on a twig and hears a crunch. Did this crunch really come from a twig that he himself had trampled on? Or did someone big and predatory crackle nearby? It was important for a person to know this for survival, and therefore, according to Stetson, the brain developed a mechanism for synchronizing sensory channels and motor skills in order to Homo sapiens clearly understood the connection of his actions with the results he saw, or heard, or identified with the help of touch. An American neurophysiologist called this mechanism recalibrating - in its process, the brain shifts information about the action closer to information about the result in time, and thus all our conscious activity lies, as it were, a little bit in the past. We act before we realize it. If we return to the analogy with a twig, then first a person stepped on it, and only then, after a few milliseconds, did the twig crackle. And the case is perceived as if a crunch is heard simultaneously with the movement of the leg. However, such a mechanism can be tried to be slightly deceived, and then interesting illusions of time perception are obtained.

Stetson and Eagleman's experiment was remarkably simple. They asked the subjects to press a button, after which, with a lag of 100 milliseconds, a light bulb lit up. This happened many times, but by the end of the experiment, the light bulb began to light up without any lag, but immediately after pressing the button. At this point, the subjects had the feeling that the light bulb lights up even before the button is pressed. Thus, the brain, having brought motor skills closer in time to information from vision, did not have time to reorganize with a decrease in the lag and took the data on the result into the past compared to the data on the action.

Jumping rabbits

So, the sense of time cannot be considered absolute - we perceive time only in the aggregate and in connection with other factors of the surrounding world. This confirms another temporary illusion - the so-called kappa effect. It is observed in the course of a very simple experiment. Two light sources are placed in front of the subject. At some point, one light comes on and after a period of time another. Now, if the bulbs are moved away from each other at a greater distance, and then light them sequentially with the same period of time, then the subject subjectively evaluates the second period as longer. One of the proposed explanations for the effect is called the constant velocity hypothesis and is based on the assumption that motion estimation plays a role in the perception of space-time parameters. In more difficult variant In the experiment, more than two light sources flashed sequentially along an imaginary line. And although the distance between the flashes was not the same, the bulbs were lit at regular intervals. The human brain, obviously, perceives this sequence as manifestations of a single object in motion. And of course, if we assume that it moves at the same speed, then it must pass unequal distances between different flashes in different times. But even if it is not, the illusion persists. Not temporary, but similar in essence, the illusion is called the "skin rabbit" (skin rabbit). If you touch the wrist with a short interval, and then the elbow bend, then there will be a feeling of some kind of touch throughout inside elbow - as if a rabbit galloped. That is, here, too, we observe the brain's desire to combine successive and spatially spaced events into a certain trajectory.

Rice. 18. Grouping by Proximity Factor

Rice. 19. Rubin figure: two black profiles on a white background or a white vase on a black background

The law of aftereffect of figure and background. Constancy of perception. A person prefers to perceive (be aware of) what he has previously seen. This manifests itself in a series of laws. The law of the aftereffect of figure and background says: what a person once perceived as a figure tends to aftereffect, i.e., to re-singling out as a figure; what was once perceived as background tends to continue to be perceived as background. Let us consider some experiments demonstrating the manifestation of this law.

The subjects were presented with meaningless black-and-white images. (Such images are easy to make for anyone: on a small piece of white paper, you just need to draw some meaningless stripes in black ink so that the ratio of black and white volumes on the piece of paper is approximately the same.) In most cases, the subjects perceived the white field as a figure, and black - as a background, i.e. they saw the image as white on black. However, with some effort, they could perceive the presented image and how black figure on a white background. In the preliminary ("training") series of the experiment, the subjects were presented with several hundred such images, each for about 4 seconds. At the same time, they were told what color image (white or black) they should see as a figure. The subjects tried "with all their might" to see exactly the image as the figure that the experimenter pointed to. In the “testing” series of the experiment, which was carried out a few days later, they were presented with both new drawings and images from the previous series, and they had to perceive without any effort what was presented as it is perceived by itself, and report which field - white or black - see as a figure. It turned out that the subjects tended to perceive old images in the same way as they did in the training series (although basically they did not even recognize these images), i.e., re-select the same figure and not select the same background.

We present to the subject for a split second a set of stimuli (these can be images or words, sounds or instrument readings, etc.). Its task is to recognize the presented stimuli. Some of them he recognizes unmistakably. In some he makes mistakes, i.e., he selects the wrong (from the point of view of the instruction) figure. It turns out that upon repeated presentation of stimuli in which he had previously made a mistake, the subject more often than not accidentally makes mistakes again. Usually he repeats the same mistakes that he made earlier (“the figure aftereffects”), sometimes he makes different mistakes in a row (“the background aftereffects”). The phenomenon of repetition of perceptual errors found in different experiments is especially unexpected. Indeed, in order to repeat a mistake when the same stimulus is presented, the subject must first recognize that the presented stimulus is the same, remember that in response to its presentation he has already made such and such a mistake, i.e., in essence, his recognize and then repeat the mistake.

In some dual images, a person cannot see the second image in any way, even despite the experimenter's direct prompts. But here the subjects draw a picture that includes this image, or describe in detail what they saw, or express associations that arise in connection with the picture.

Constancy of perception is largely a manifestation of the influence of past experience. We know the wheels are round and the paper is white, and that's why we see them that way. When there is no knowledge about the real shapes, sizes and colors of objects, then the phenomenon of constancy does not manifest itself. One ethnographer describes: once in Africa, he, along with a local resident - a pygmy, came out of the forest. Cows were grazing in the distance. The pygmy had never seen cows from afar before, and therefore, to the amazement of the ethnographer, mistook them for ants - the constancy of perception was broken.

Influence on the perception of expectations and assumptions. Another principle of perception: a person perceives the world depending on what he expects to perceive. The process of selecting a figure is influenced by people's assumptions about what can be presented to them. Much more often than we imagine, we see what we expect to see, hear what we expect to hear, and so on. will feel like the softness of rubber as long as the subject is convinced that the object given to him is a rubber toy. If presented with an image that can equally well be understood as the number 13 or as the letter B, then the subjects without any doubt perceive this sign as 13 if it appears in a series of numbers, and as the letter B if it appears in a series of letters. .

A person easily fills in the gaps in the incoming information and isolates the message from the noise if he assumes or knows in advance what will be presented to him. Perceptual errors are very often caused by deceived expectations. If we show the subject for a fraction of a second an image of a face without eyes - as a rule, he will see a face with eyes and will confidently prove that there really were eyes in the image. We clearly hear an unintelligible word in noise if it is clear from the context. In the experiment, the subjects were shown slides so out of focus that real identification of the image was impossible. Each successive presentation slightly improved focus. It turned out that the subjects who, at the first presentations, put forward erroneous hypotheses about what they were shown, could not correctly identify the image even with such image quality, when no one makes mistakes at all. If two circles with different diameters are shown on the screen 4–5 times in a row, each time on the left with a diameter of, for example, 22 mm, and on the right with a diameter of 28 mm, and then two equal circles with a diameter of 25 mm are presented, then the overwhelming most of the subjects already involuntarily expect to see unequal circles, and therefore do not see (do not realize) them as equal. (This effect will be even more pronounced if a person with his eyes closed first put balls of different volume or weight in his left and right hands, and then put equal balls.)

Immutable information is not held in consciousness, so a person is not able to perceive and realize unchanging information for a long time. Unchanging information quickly enough becomes expected and even against the will of the subjects slips out of their consciousness. A stabilized image that does not change in brightness and color (for example, with the help of contact lenses to which a light source is attached, thus moving along with the eyes), with all the effort of the subject, ceases to be perceived already 1–3 s after the start of presentation. A constant stimulus of moderate intensity, acting on the ear (constant or strictly periodic noise) or on the skin (clothing, wristwatch), ceases to be noticed very soon. The color background with prolonged fixation loses its color and begins to look gray. Close attention to any unchanging or evenly swaying object disrupts the normal course of consciousness and contributes to the emergence of so-called altered states - meditative and hypnotic. There is a special hypnotization technique by fixing a point on the ceiling or wall, as well as fixing the gaze on an object located at a distance of about 25 cm from the subject's eyes.

Repeated repetition of the same word or group of words leads to a subjective feeling of loss of the meaning of these words. Say a word aloud repeatedly - sometimes a dozen repetitions are enough to create a specific feeling of losing the meaning of this word. Many mystical techniques are built on this technique: shamanic rituals, repetition of verbal formulas (“Lord, have mercy on me a sinner” in Orthodoxy, “la ilaha il-la-l-lahu” (i.e. “there is no god but Allah”) in Islam), etc. Repeated pronunciation of such phrases leads not only to the loss of their meaning, but also, as Eastern mystics say, to a complete “emptying of consciousness”, which contributes to the emergence of special mystical states. The constant talking of the doctor, repeating the same formulas, contributes to hypnotic suggestion. The monotonous-monotonous architectural environment has a soporific effect on people.

Automated actions (walking, reading, playing musical instruments, swimming, etc.) due to their monotony are also not perceived by the person performing this action, they are not kept in mind. A number of complex tasks that require the greatest accuracy and muscular coordination (ballet dances, boxing, marksmanship, fast typing) are successfully performed only when they are brought to automatism and therefore are practically not perceived by consciousness. The "psychic satiety effect" was discovered: the subject is not able to perform a monotonous task without variations for even a short time and is forced to change - sometimes imperceptibly - the task he is solving.

With the scarcity of external influences, a person develops phenomena similar to fatigue: erroneous actions increase, emotional tone decreases, drowsiness develops, etc. In 1956, perhaps the most famous experiment was carried out with a prolonged lack of information (sensory isolation): for $ 20 a day (which at that time was a very significant amount), the volunteer subjects lay on the bed, their hands were inserted into special cardboard tubes so that there were as few tactile stimuli as possible, they were put on special glasses that let only diffused light through, auditory the irritants were masked by the incessant noise of the running air conditioner. The subjects were fed, watered, they could take care of their toilet as needed, but the rest of the time they were as motionless as possible. The hopes of the subjects that they would have a good rest in such conditions did not come true. The participants in the experiment could not concentrate on anything - thoughts eluded them. More than 80% of the subjects became victims of visual hallucinations: the walls shook, the floor rotated, the body and mind split in two, the eyes became unbearably painful from bright light, etc. None of them lasted more than six days, and most demanded to stop the experiment after three day.

Meaningful words are recognized much faster and more accurately than meaningless sets of letters when they are visually presented. In an experiment with a shaded message, when different texts are fed to different ears, it turned out that out of two messages, the person himself always chooses the one that has some meaning that is understandable to him, and, as already mentioned, practically does not notice the message for which he no need to follow. But the most unexpected thing: if a meaningful message is given first to one ear, then to the other, then the subject, despite all his efforts to strictly follow the message given to one particular ear, is forced to shifts his attention to a meaningful message, in whichever ear it is given. In part, this effect can be demonstrated when visual information is presented. Please read the following text, paying attention only to the words in bold:

When meaningful text moves from one font to another, it usually feels like a glitch, and sometimes an attempt to read text written in a different font.

Making sense of the world has a lot to do with the use of language. Therefore, our perception of the world changes depending on what words we call what we see. People who speak different languages perceive the world in slightly different ways, because different languages themselves describe this world in slightly different ways. It is no coincidence that Russian artists depict spring in the form of a charming girl (the word "spring" in Russian is feminine), and German artists in the form of a beautiful young man (in accordance with the gender of the word "spring" in German). Russian-speaking subjects, for example, are more likely to separate blue and light blue in their perception than English-speaking subjects, who use the same word “blue” to designate these two colors.

Perception as a process of testing hypotheses. A huge number of errors that we make in perception are not due to the fact that we see or hear something incorrectly - our senses work almost perfectly, but to the fact that we misunderstand it. However, it is thanks to our ability to comprehend the perceived that we make discoveries and perceive much more than what is perceived by our senses. Past experience and foresight of the future expand the information received by our senses. We use this information to test hypotheses about what is in front of us. Perception – it is an active process of obtaining information to test hypotheses about the world around us.

It's not surprising that perception is closely connected with movement, action. It is obvious that movement is necessary to obtain the necessary information. Any object must be in the field of view in order to be seen; it must be picked up in order to feel, etc. Although the mechanisms governing such movements are very complex, we will not consider them here. However, the role of movement in perception is not only (and even not so much) in this. First of all, we note the micromovements of the sense organs. They contribute to the retention in the mind of unchanging stimuli, which, as we remember, tend to quickly disappear from consciousness. A person constantly shifts the points of skin sensitivity: tremor of the fingers, hands, torso, which does not allow stabilizing muscle sensations: involuntary micro-movements of the eye make it impossible to keep the gaze on a given point, etc. All this contributes to such a change in external stimulation so that the perceived is preserved in consciousness, but at the same time, the constancy of perceived objects was not violated.

Rice. 20. Illusion of the size of the visible object: plan of the Ames room

However, the main role of action in perception is to test emerging hypotheses. Let's consider a corresponding example. The American psychologist A. Ames designed a special room (it is called the “Ames room”), the far wall of which is not located at right angles to the side walls, as is usually the case, but at a very sharp angle to one wall and, accordingly, at an obtuse angle to the other ( see Fig. 20). Thanks to the false perspective created, among other things, by the patterns on the walls, the observer sitting at the viewing device perceived this room as rectangular. If an object or a stranger is placed in the far (beveled) sharp corner of such a room, they seem to be sharply reduced in size. This illusion persists even if the observer is informed of the true shape of the room. However, as soon as the observer performs some action in this room (touch the wall with a stick, throw the ball into the opposite wall), then the illusion disappears - the room begins to be seen in accordance with its real form. (The role of past experience is evidenced by the fact that the illusion does not arise at all if the observer sees a person who is well known to him, for example, a husband or wife, a son, etc.) So, a person forms a hypothesis about what he perceives (for example, sees or hears), and with the help of his actions checks the validity of this hypothesis. Our actions correct our hypotheses, and with them our perceptions.

HOW MAN REMEMBERS

A person is not able to keep in mind even a small set of signs. He is usually able to reproduce without error after a single presentation of just no more than seven numbers, letters, syllables, words, names of objects, etc. Not everyone can immediately remember even a seven-digit phone number. Why is the result of our attempts to remember something the first time so deplorable? In fact, the answer to this question has already been given: consciousness, as shown in the previous paragraph, is not capable of holding immutable information. This means that a person usually forgets such information that is required to be kept unchanged in consciousness. Therefore, paradoxical as it may seem, in order to keep information in the mind, it is necessary to change it all the time.

The brain automatically remembers any information. If this information does not change, it just as automatically leaves consciousness. Therefore, when something is preserved in consciousness, then, generally speaking, this occurs in violation of the normal mental process. The activity of a person to resist this normal process of leaving the consciousness of unchanged information includes attempts, sometimes painful, to keep the information in the mind by changing it and the specific actions of the subject, aimed at returning the signs that have left him to consciousness.

mnemonics. There are various mnemonic tricks, which contribute to better memorization of information and allow you to increase the amount of information memorized from the first presentation. They are aimed at inducing the subject to artificially change the stimulus material, but in such a way that these changes nevertheless do not lead to reproduction errors. Let's look at some of these techniques.

Creating images when memorizing words. When the first pair of words is presented, a visual image is created - an imaginary situation that includes both of these words. When presented with a pair of words “puppy, bicycle”, one can imagine, for example, a cheerful puppy riding a bicycle and pedaling vigorously. Let the next word be "cigar" - now in the imaginary picture the puppy is pedaling with a cigar in his mouth. A new word "geography" is presented: a geography textbook with a world map on the cover appears on the trunk of a bicycle. "Computer" - the entire imaginary picture is placed on the display screen. "Snegurochka" - the puppy immediately acquires a long braid and a silver coat of a New Year's character - etc. This method allows you to greatly increase the number of memorized words. Please note: the creation of images does not reduce, but increases the amount of material to be memorized. For example, the constructed image of a puppy riding a bicycle can be applied with equal success to different pairs of words: "puppy - wheel", "dog - bicycle", "paw - pedal", etc. Therefore, the subject must still remember not not only the imaginary picture he created, but also the words themselves presented to him.

Mental placement of objects presented for memorization in space. Let's say you're sitting in an audience and you have to memorize a list of words. Try to place the objects denoted by these words in the space of the audience. Important note: place them in the most unexpected places and so that during playback, looking around the audience, you could notice them (in the desk, for example, it’s better not to put anything). So, let the word "steak" be presented to you. Where do we put it? For example, hang it on a light bulb to keep it warm. next word- "book". Let's put it on top open door- let it fall on the one who opens the door. "Crocodile" - oh, we will have a crocodile lying on the windowsill. "Airplane" put in a corner. In another corner we will put a “cactus”, and in the middle between them we will place a “flute”, etc. Again, we note an increase in the amount of memorization when mentally placing stimulus material in space - now, after all, we need to remember not only the stimulus material itself, but also where it is posted.

(By the way, try to remember, without rereading, all 12 words mentioned as presented words for memorization when describing techniques for creating images and placing objects in space. Did you manage to remember at least 10?)

Recoding. The easiest way to use this technique is to remember a large number binary digits. If you can quickly convert binary digits (0 and 1) to octal, then memorizing 7-8 octal digits will result in memorizing more than two dozen binary digits. When memorizing a row decimal numbers they can be interpreted as dates, phone numbers or apartments known to you. For example, you need to remember a series of numbers 4125073698. Let's recode this series, say, like this: 41 – year of the beginning of the war; 25 December - Catholic Christmas, and 07 January - Orthodox; 369 is 123 multiplied by 3, and at the end 8 - two in a cube.

Such recoding can be carried out when memorizing a set of words. Surely the reader still remembers the mnemonic rule for remembering the seven colors of the rainbow: Every Hunter Wants to Know Where the Pheasant Sits. There are similar constructions for memorizing the seven notes of a musical scale. A similar technique can be used when memorizing formulas. Let, for example, you need to remember the formula:

Let's replace the letters with words, for example, like this: strangled. Alas! Lead… Do not like the gloom of this design or the lack of a minus in it? Please another option: you have amazing, dear, thoughtfulness ... Is there a lack of integrals in the verbal description? No problem. Add words like: interesting, intelligent. Remember the formula? Just in case: double the increase by blowing. You won't be able to forget her now...

Among the mnemonic devices, one stands out, which is intuitively used by almost all people, not only in experimental conditions, but also in ordinary life. It's about repetition. Repetition is the translation of the material presented for memorization into the memory’s own speech, that is, a change in the material, but one that obviously does not disturb reproduction. Repetition contributes to better reproduction, but still it is not the most effective technique memorization, since repeated repetition itself, as already noted, contributes to the escape of the text from consciousness.

phenomenal memory. In psychology, many cases are described when people possessed the so-called phenomenal memory - the ability to reproduce a huge (perhaps unlimited) amount of information. Phenomenal memory is found not only in mentally retarded people (although, let me remind you, this phenomenon is most characteristic of them), but also in many famous people in history. There are legends about the unique possibilities of the memory of Julius Caesar and Napoleon, Mozart and Gauss, the chess player Alekhine and the adventurer Count Saint-Germain. One of the most striking and studied examples is the mnemonist S. D. Shereshevsky, a book about which was written by the famous Russian psychologist A. R. Luria. Psychologists did not find any restrictions in Shereshevsky either on the amount of memorization or on the storage time of information. For example, Shereshevsky, from the first presentation, memorized the long stanza of Dante's Divine Comedy in an unfamiliar Italian language, which he easily repeated during an unexpected check ... 15 years later. It is not surprising that Shereshevsky was concerned about the question, not how to remember better, but how to learn to forget.

Some of the people who had a phenomenal memory used mnemonic techniques in memorization. Shereshevsky, for example, demonstrating his amazing abilities in the circus, resorted to the technique placement in space along the familiar Moscow street. (It is curious that once he made a mistake: he put the object named to him in the shade and during reproduction, mentally walking along this street again, he did not notice it.) But usually, with phenomenal preservation, no work of consciousness is performed on the material to be memorized. The Scottish mathematician A. Etkin in 1933 read twice a list of 25 unrelated words and ... reproduced it without errors 27 years later! The well-known musicologist I. I. Sollertinsky could leaf through the book, and then accurately reproduce the text of any page of this book. Sollertinsky did not even read the book, the pages of the text of which he reproduced. It is clear that such preservation cannot be explained by any mnemonic devices. In general, people with phenomenal memory, as a rule, do not carry out any information transformations. When on one of public speaking Shereshevsky was asked to memorize a series of numbers: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, etc. up to 57, he did this without even noticing a simple sequence of numbers. “If they just gave me the alphabet, I would not notice this and would honestly memorize it,” admitted Shereshevsky.

With phenomenal memory, signs are reproduced without visible effort - with the same ease with which we, looking at a house or a tree, without any conscious effort, find out that it is a house, a tree. The problem is that none of us knows how to consciously imprint the information we memorize into memory. We can remember, but we don't know how we can do it. Nevertheless, each of us constantly controls the process of memorization with our consciousness: what if I make a mistake? What if I forget something important? One gets the impression that people with phenomenal memory differ primarily in that they are able, like children, not to put the process of storing and retrieving from memory under the control of consciousness.

Figure and background when retrieved from memory. The hero of the famous story by A.P. Chekhov for a long time recalled the “horse” surname, until he remembered - Ovsov. But at the same time, he remembered that other options (Kobylin, Zherebtsov, Loshadinin, Bulanov, etc.) were not suitable. As always, Chekhov is accurate in his observation. We all know that one forgotten word or the forgotten surname of one of our acquaintances is experienced differently than another forgotten word or the forgotten surname of another acquaintance. We often remember more than we can remember. What we consciously retrieve from memory (figure) is always accompanied by something else that we are not clearly aware of (background).

Try to memorize a list of 10 words from one reading and then, without looking at the text, write down on a piece of paper all the words you remember in any order:

chicken hair deed news nipple bump prison jam key chain gate

Don't be surprised if you remember seven or more words (from five to nine) - you usually do. But it is unlikely (although possible) that you could write down all ten words. Are your attempts to remember the rest failing? Do you feel like you remember more?

Then read a list of 20 words, which includes 10 words you already know and 10 new ones. Attribute to what you have already managed to reproduce those words that you recognized in this list as words from the previous list. In the vast majority of cases, at least one word can be attributed to everyone! Let's hope you succeed too. Here is a list to know:

prison hoof jug gate shoe dove nipple dumbass pear jam pipe bump chicken keychain ram ambush news hair sailor act

So, most of the subjects manage to recognize previously unreproduced words from the first list. This means that they remembered them even when they could not reproduce! Just what we remember, but do not reproduce, acts in our minds as a background to what we can reproduce.

The well-known researcher of memory G. Ebbinghaus created a peculiar method of measuring the volume of what is somehow given to consciousness, but which nevertheless is not reproduced - the method of saving. As you know, a long series of characters (numbers, letters, syllables, words, etc.), far exceeding the limit of seven characters, the subject can memorize only after several repetitions. However, after a long time after memorization, the subject is usually not able to reproduce any of the elements of the previously memorized series. No wonder, we say, he completely forgot about it. But is it? Ebbinghaus asks subjects to re-memorize the same series. And it turns out that for repeated memorization of a supposedly forgotten row, a significantly smaller number of presentations is often required than if this row had not been memorized earlier. Let a person be sure that he does not remember anything, in fact, he may well still store something (“save”, in the terminology of Ebbinghaus) in his memory. Even when our consciousness forgets, it actually remembers something from the forgotten, remembers what it does not seem to remember.

Here is an example of one of the studies using the savings method. The child, who was only five months old at the beginning of the experiment, was read aloud three passages in ancient Greek every day for three months. Every next three months, three new passages were read to him. This continued until the baby was three years old. Later, he never learned ancient Greek. At the age of 8, 14 and 18, he was again presented each time with a different part of these passages to memorize, along with new texts he had never heard before. At 8 years old, he learned old texts 30% faster than new ones, at 14 years old - 8% faster, although at 18 the differences were no longer noticeable.

When studying the process of memorization, one can also detect the effects of the aftereffect of the figure and the background. Even Ebbinghaus himself established the law that now bears his name: the number of repeated presentations required to memorize the entire series grows much faster than the volume of the presented series. For example: in one presentation, the subject correctly reproduces 6-7 meaningless syllables, however, to reproduce 12 syllables, he will need 16 presentations, and for 24 syllables - 44 presentations; if the subject memorizes 8 digits from one presentation, then to memorize 9 digits he already needs 3-4 presentations. In this case (the aftereffect of the figure), during the following presentations, first of all, those signs are reproduced that have already been reproduced during the previous presentation. But this also means that previously unreproduced signs continue to be stubbornly unreproduced on subsequent presentations (background aftereffect). Thus, the Ebbinghaus law is a consequence of both the aftereffect of the figure and the aftereffect of the background.

Let the person reproduce after one presentation a series of 10–14 characters. He will reproduce some signs of this series correctly, but he will miss some, “do not remember”. After that, he is presented with the next row, containing both new characters and characters from the previous row (correctly reproduced and omitted). It turns out that in this case, aftereffects of figure and background are also observed. A person will remember, first of all, those signs that he has just correctly reproduced (the probability of reproducing these signs is greater than the probability of reproducing new signs). Worst of all, he will remember those characters that he just forgot when presenting the previous row (the probability of reproducing previously missed characters is less than the probability of reproducing new characters). The substitution error is also repeated, when another character is consistently reproduced instead of one. All this looks incredible: after all, in order to repeat the mistake of skipping, one must be able to recognize previously missed characters. In other words, in order not to repeat any signs, they must be remembered! But the most striking thing is that if the subject did not reproduce any of the signs, and this sign is in the next row was not presented to him, then the subject, more often than accidentally, will erroneously reproduce this previously omitted sign. Similarly: the forgotten “horse name” comes into our consciousness not when we intensely recall it, but at the moment when we don’t think about it at all.

The process of retrieval from memory is very similar to the process of perception. Of the huge amount of data stored in the brain, when remembering, it is necessary to realize only a small part of this data - a figure, saving the rest of the information as a poorly distinguishable background. It is not surprising that the main factors that influence the perception of a figure also affect its retrieval from memory.