Bachelor 2021/2022

Visual Perception and Visual Illusions

Type: Elective course (Psychology)

Area of studies: Psychology

Delivered by: School of Psychology

Where: Faculty of Social Sciences

When: 3 year, 4 module

Mode of studies: distance learning

Online hours: 15

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Aleksandr Vecherin

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Contact hours: 2

Course Syllabus

Abstract

Visual perception is an inference of a scene out there based on a sensory input from eyes. Visual attention is a process concentrating a computational force of the brain on a specific aspect of the perceived scene or of the sensory input. The processes of perception and attention interact with one another and the interaction is even indispensable for them. This course will review studies of them and of interactions between them. Theories behind perception and attention will be particularly emphasized. The first half of the course mostly covers perception: how the scene is represented in the brain, how the representation is computed in the brain, and how the perceptual process affects and is affected by attention. The second half of the course more emphasizes attention itself: types of attention, how attention affects cognitive performance, how it makes us see what we see, how it is linked to memory and consciousness, and why it is limited.