As Jackie walks through the trees, the sunlight sometimes hits her hair and makes it shine while other times she is in shadow and her hair looks more dull. When you see her, you never think that her hair is actually changing colour. What accounts for this smooth perception of Jackie's hair?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Perceptual constancy is the ability to perceive objects as relatively stable and constant despite changes in sensory input. In this case, even though the light hitting Jackie's hair is changing, we still recognize her hair as being the same color because of our ability to maintain perceptual constancy. Bistable images refer to images that can be seen in two different ways, which is not applicable in this scenario. Perceptual sets refer to expectations and biases that we bring to a situation, which are also not applicable here. Bottom-up processing is the processing of sensory information from the environment, but this alone cannot account for the smooth perception of Jackie's hair color.

As Jackie Walks Through the Trees, the Sunlight Sometimes Hits