PERCEPTION AND ATTENTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Today we're looking at attention, perception, and consciousness. What is
perception anyway, Well, perception begins before awareness. You don't see everything,
you see what your brain allows, and perception tends to
organize sensory input using principles that we'll be talking about
later figure ground, similarity, proximity, and continuity. Death Perception uses

(00:25):
monocular and binocular cues. Constancies help maintain stable perception despite
changing input, and we'll look at different types of constancies
a little later on. Attention includes selective divide and sustained
consciousness spans, wakefulness, sleep, hypnosis, and meditative states. And for

(00:45):
clinical relevance, we'll look at inattentional bindness, attentional bias, especially
in anxiety and depression, and some of the perceptual distortions
that you'll see in psychosis. So let's start off with
perceptual organization. This is something you remember probably early on
in your grad school years, the Gestalt principles on how

(01:06):
we perceive objects and scenes. And remember it isn't passive,
it's an active construction that you have. So figure ground
is distinguishing an object from its background. Similarity is grouping
similar elements. Proximity is grouping objects that are close together,
and continuity is perceiving continuous patterns. So if he's seeing

(01:29):
a face in a crowd, that's figure ground. Distinguishing an
object from its background while ignoring the background is ground
a component of the figure ground principle. So you need
to recognize these gestalt laws and let's blow them up
a little bit more and get into more details. The
figure ground again is a tendency to separate the visual

(01:49):
field into the figure the object. To focus on the
ground the background when reading a text, the words of
the figure in the white background is the ground. In
the therapy office at client my focus on a ticking
clock while tuning out the ambient sounds. This principles foundational
to visual perception is often tested using the famous Rubens
vase as a two faces or is it a vase?

(02:12):
Similarities and ex principle elements that are similar but are
perceived as part of the same group or pattern. A
therapist therapist notices that a client groups all red objects
and a drawing together even though they are in different locations,
indicating a perception based on color similarity. Questions may describe
scenes or visual patterns in the e triple P and

(02:33):
ask you to identify why certain elements or groups perceptually proximities.
Objects that are close together in space are perceived as
belonging together, and a group therapy sessions, clients sitting close
together may be perceived as being more aligned or supportive,
even if that's not the case. On a computer screen,
icons group tightly are seen as functionally related, and the

(02:55):
triple P be prepared to contrast this with similarity. Proximity
refers to space, not appearance. Continuity for the final one,
as we perceive lines, patterns, or trajectories as continuing in
a smooth path rather than changing direction. So a child
drawing a snake continues a wavy line rather than suddenly
turning it into a square. This reflects the tendency to

(03:17):
follow visual flow, may appear in neurosych style questions involving
visual tracking. Another one I will add to it. It's
called closure, the tendency to fill in missing parts of
a visual stimulus to perceive a complete whole object. So
when you're looking at a circle with small gap, you
perceive it as a full circle. Clients with high anxiety

(03:37):
may fill in social gaps with negative assumptions it's a
cognitive analog to perceptual closure. A couple other ones that
we're going to throw in. There are common fate objects
moving in the same direction or speed perceived as part
of a group, So a flock of birds flying together
as seen as one unit. And yet therapy, this could
be a metaphor for social grouping children moving together on

(03:58):
a playground and perceived as a path by an excluded child.
Symmetry symmetrical images or perceived as being part of the
same group, as well to symmetrical tattoos on a client's arms,
may be seen as part of a unified theme. It
can't appear in a projective test interpretation, where symmetrical responses
on the warshack are perceived differently than asymmetrical ones. Now

(04:22):
we'll head back to perceptual constancies, and this will be
another area that you're gonna learn. You could probably you'll
have to learn. In regards for the a triple P,
I mean each triple P. So the first one is
size constancy. Constancy a person walking towards you doesn't appear

(04:44):
to grow larger. Perceptual constancy keeps our experiences stable despite
changes in sensory input. Shape, constancy. A door remains rectangle
even as it opens. Color constancy. A red apple under
a blue light still appears rat Death perception is another
one which develops an infancy, and it's supported by what
they call binocular cues. You see, we have slight differences

(05:07):
between eyes that create death. This is called retinal disparity.
Convergence is when eye muscles contract more when objects are near.
Monocular cues are a linear perspective, relative size, interposition, and
texture radiant. Let's look at these. So again, let's look

(05:28):
at these. Linear perspective means parallel lines appear to converge
in the distance. The train tracks appear to get closer
together as they move toward the horizon. This may appear
in questions about gestalt perception, like death illusions or how
artists use death cues. No, it's a monocular cue, despite
the illusion of death. Relative size. If two objects are

(05:50):
known to be the same size, the one that appears
smaller is perceived is farther away. A person standing further
down a hallway appears smaller than someone closer, even though
they are the same height. This is often used again
in projective testings, visual illusions and developmental vision questions will
also use them, so how infants learn death. Interposition also
known as occlusion. When one object overlaps another, the overlapping

(06:13):
object is perceived as closer. A tree in front of
a house is perceived to be closer than the house.
It appears in perception, gestalt principles, and possibly projective test
analysis where visual hierarchy is relevant. The next and last
is what they call the texture gradient and the definition
there of texture gradients. Objects closer to the viewer have

(06:34):
more detailed textures, those farther away appear smoother or blurrier.
So individual blades of grass are visible obviously up close,
but appears a green blur in the distance. Sometimes grouped
with ecological psychology like Gibson, relevant for questions on death
cues without motion. We did talk about retinal disparity, so

(06:54):
again each eye receives a slightly different image of the
brain compares these to perceived death. Important for understanding three
D perceptions stereopsis stereopsis and may appear in vision, perception
or neuropsychology sections. The other one is bringing finger close
to your nose, you feel your eyes crossing its convergence.

(07:14):
Like we talked about earlier, and now we mentioned a
couple of things here. Clients with visual or neurological conditions
may misjudge space or object permanence, especially in what they
call visual agnosia or neglect syndromes, and you also might
see it in psychosis. So let's see here with visual

(07:35):
agnosia is a neurological condition which a person can see
but cannot recognize or interpret visual information despite intact vision.
That is not a problem with the eyes, but actually
a higher order of visual processing in the occipital temporal cortex.
There are other types of visual aagnosias, like aperceptive agnosia
cannot perceive form of objects or associate of agnosia cannot

(07:56):
perceive shapes but cannot assigned can perceive shapes but cannot
sign meaning to them, so they can draw a dog
but can't say that's a dog. And apperceptive agnosia, I
forgot to give you an example. It can't copy or
match shapes. Prosopagnosia, which you probably heard as inability to
recognize faces, so you can't recognize familiar people. Neuroanatomy lesions

(08:19):
usually occur in the occipital lobe, particularly in the ventral
stream write, hemisphere lesions off and affect face and object recognition,
be able to distinguish visual agnosia in the E triple
P from anomia, which is naming difficulty but with recognition
intact HEMI neglect which is attention deficit not perception, cortical

(08:40):
blindness loss of vision due to brain damage. So those
are some of the ideas there in regards to that
visual agnosia and neglect syndromes. We move on next to
what they call attention mechanisms, So we look at selective attention,
which is spoke using on one stimulus while filtering others.

(09:03):
Probably heard of the cocktail party. Effectively hearing a name
in a noisy room shows attention some sensitivity to relevance,
Divided attention, splitting focus across multiple tasks, accurate and speed suffer.
For a few decades ago, they used to think multitasking
was great, and then they realized I wasn't. So a
clinician writing notes while listening may missubtle emotional cue. This

(09:24):
is why some clinicians don't take notes. Sustained attention holding
focus over time. This is often impaired in ADHD or
TBI and major depressive disorder ADHD, including inconsistent focus like
shifting attention too quickly or hyper focusing unpredictably, impaired executive control,
poor task switching and inhibition, and finally, frontal lobe under activation,

(09:46):
especially in the dorsal lateral pre funnel cortex. Attention is
fragile clients with depression though also they focus on negative cues,
but also have a hard time focusing and struggle to disengage.
Anxious clients may scan for threat and miss safety signals.
This is called attentional by I mentioned depression and anxiety,

(10:07):
so selective attention is impaired as well. In depression. Reducibility
to disengage from negative stimuli is usually one of the issues.
In anxiety, it's also impaired focusing on threat related stimuli.
Hypervigilance is it's going to have with selective attention, and
this will probably show up in the cognitive biases DOT
pro tasks. Another one is this sustained attention, So somebody

(10:30):
with depression I often feel it's often decreased when it
comes to sustained attention, especially on monotonous or non rewarding tasks.
For anxiety, it may be intact or even increase, but
vigilance may be threat specific. And finally, as divided attention
managing multiple streams of information simultaneously. It's reduced in cognitive
flexibility and people with depression and difficulty switching between tasks.

(10:53):
For people with anxiety, it may be impaired under stress
due to preoccupation with danger. They'll they get tested in
the dual time paradigms. Finally, as executive attention, and this
is managing conflicts conflicting demands. For depression, it is impaired
as well, especially in goal setting and overwriting automatic responses.

(11:14):
For people with anxiety, it's also impaired difficulty inhibiting attention
to irrelevant threats. So again, people with ADHD have this,
people with depression will have it and anxiety but just
slightly varied a little bit. So we're going to the
last sections. Now, we'll head over to our clinical phenomena

(11:37):
that is associated with attention and will wrap up with
states of consciousness. Again. Inattentional blindness is failing to see
visible stimuli when focused elsewhere. Probably remember the famous gorilla video. Fortunately,
lots of lossless pizaz once all the students start seeing
it you remember the person experiment showed people missed the
person in a gorilla too while counting basketball passes. Change

(11:58):
blindness is not noticing all obvious changes in a visual scene.
A client may not notice how their moved shifts. When
discussing trauma and attentional bias and anxiety. For instance, clients
over attempt to threat cues and depression attention lingers on
sad faces, failures, or loose losses. These biases maintain symptoms
and are targeted and CBT and attention bias modification techniques.

(12:22):
Last area of state of consciousness, we're going to go
over some of the things we talked about during sleep.
Consciousness is not all or nothing, though it exists on
a spectrum. Like most things in the psychiatric world, each
state reflects a distinct neural pattern, though wakefulness is associated
with the beta waves, fast through regular brain activity, active thinking, alertness,

(12:42):
and problem solving occur here. Sleep stages. Sleep follows a
cycle of non rem and rem stages. Stage one is
light sleep and beta waves. Stage two is sleep spindles
and k complexes. Remember that one memory consolidation sleep three.
Stage three is deep sleep and delta waves, physical restoration

(13:06):
and then REM sleep, which is rapid eye movement, vivid drimming,
paradoxical sleep like brain active and the body's I'm moving
and let's see and from there we're moving over to REM.
Sleep plays a role in emotional regulation, procedural memory, trauma processing.
Sleep deprivation increases emotional reactivity and impairs prefrontal regulation hypnosis.

(13:33):
We're not going to get into whether it's rail or not.
It's a focused state of awareness with increase such as suggestibility.
Brain imaging shows changes in anterior singular cortex involved in
attention and conflict monitoring used in pain control, habit change,
and trauma work, but only in suggestible individuals. Meditation, different
types focused attention are linked to increased alpha and theta

(13:53):
activity and changes in default mode network activity. Long term
meditation can reduce stress and improve focus and promote emotion regulation.
A client with PTSD, for instance, reports disassociation during meditation.
This isn't resistance, It may just reflect altered consciousness related
to trauma history. Mindfulness may need to be adapted or

(14:14):
replaced with rounding so I gain At the end of
the day. Perception, attention, and consciousness pack shape the raw
material of our experience, what clients see, what they miss,
and what they remember all flow through these systems. Next
time we'll be talking about the learning theories and their
clinical expect expectations or applications. I'm sorry we're revisiting the

(14:38):
old days from undergrad. We'll be looking at Pavlov and
Skinner again in a different way though, how you can
use it clinically and in the E triple P. Thanks
for listening, everybody,