Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Perception01:28

Perception

770
Perception is a fundamental psychological process that enables individuals to organize, interpret, and consciously experience sensory information. This process is crucial for understanding and interacting with the world around us. It includes both bottom-up and top-down processing, each playing a distinct role in how we perceive our environment.
Bottom-up processing begins at the sensory level, where receptors detect external environmental stimuli. These could include the tactile sensation of...
770
Introducing Social Perception01:29

Introducing Social Perception

131
Perceiving others accurately is fundamental to effective communication and relationship-building. Social perception, a key concept in social psychology, refers to the cognitive processes through which individuals gather and interpret information about others to understand their actions, intentions, and motivations. This process extends beyond spoken words and overt behaviors, incorporating subtle nonverbal cues and contextual factors.Nonverbal Cues and Their SignificanceNonverbal cues play a...
131
Factors Affecting Perception01:25

Factors Affecting Perception

2.2K
Perception is influenced by perceptual set, context, motivation, and emotion. Perceptual set, or perceptual expectancy, refers to the tendency to perceive things in a particular way, influenced by previous experiences and expectations. This phenomenon affects the interpretation of stimuli, creating a set of mental tendencies and assumptions that impact sensory perceptions of sound, taste, touch, and sight.
An illustrative example of a perceptual set is the scenario where an airline pilot told...
2.2K
Gestalt Principles of Perception01:21

Gestalt Principles of Perception

765
Gestalt principles provide a framework for understanding how humans perceive objects as unified wholes within their context. These principles are essential in explaining the cognitive processes that make sense of complex visual stimuli by organizing them into coherent groups. One fundamental principle is proximity, which posits that objects located close to each other are perceived as a collective group. For instance, when dots are positioned near one another, the visual system interprets them...
765
Dark Triad and Person Perception01:29

Dark Triad and Person Perception

87
Person perception is influenced by both external behaviors and the observer’s internal characteristics, including personality traits. Individuals with dark personality traits, comprising psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism — collectively known as the dark triad – exhibit manipulative and exploitative tendencies in social contexts. These traits affect how they perceive others and how they are perceived.The Role of Dark Personality Traits in Person PerceptionBlack et...
87
Perceptual Constancy01:12

Perceptual Constancy

822
Perceptual constancy is the ability to recognize that objects remain consistent and unchanged even when their appearance varies due to changes in sensory input. There are four main types of perceptual constancy: size constancy, shape constancy, color constancy, and brightness constancy.
Size constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same size, even when its image on the retina changes. For instance, a bus is perceived to be large enough to carry people, even if it looks tiny from...
822

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Pretending Not to Know Reveals a Capacity for Model-Based Self-Simulation.

Psychological science·2026
Same author

Part-whole effects in visual number estimation.

Attention, perception & psychophysics·2026
Same author

Number adaptation survives spatial displacement.

Current biology : CB·2025
Same author

Apprehending relational events: The visual world paradigm and the interplay of event perception and language.

Brain research·2025
Same author

Knowledge for two<b>When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…</b> <i>Steven Pinker</i> Scribner, 2025. 384 pp.

Science (New York, N.Y.)·2025
Same author

The psychophysics of compositionality: Relational scene perception occurs in a canonical order.

Cognitive psychology·2025
Same journal

Geographical psychology: Spatial variation in psychological phenomena and their consequences.

Trends in cognitive sciences·2026
Same journal

Multi-brain neurofeedback: what are we training for?

Trends in cognitive sciences·2026
Same journal

The developing vocal self.

Trends in cognitive sciences·2026
Same journal

Searching beyond decrements: Attentional guidance across the adult lifespan.

Trends in cognitive sciences·2026
Same journal

Looking into working memory through micro eye movements.

Trends in cognitive sciences·2026
Same journal

Timescapes of non-human experience.

Trends in cognitive sciences·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Nov 10, 2025

RBDT: A Computerized Task System based in Transposition for the Continuous Analysis of Relational Behavior Dynamics in Humans
11:09

RBDT: A Computerized Task System based in Transposition for the Continuous Analysis of Relational Behavior Dynamics in Humans

Published on: July 17, 2021

3.2K

The Perception of Relations.

Alon Hafri1, Chaz Firestone2

  • 1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA; Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

Trends in Cognitive Sciences
|April 4, 2021
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

The human mind automatically processes complex visual relations, like support and causality, demonstrating that perception involves more than just recognizing objects. These findings highlight the visual system

Keywords:
compositionalitycore cognitionintuitive physicsrole-bindingstructured representationsvisual psychophysics

More Related Videos

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning
14:38

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Published on: November 2, 2012

12.0K
Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios
07:43

Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios

Published on: August 4, 2023

2.4K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Nov 10, 2025

RBDT: A Computerized Task System based in Transposition for the Continuous Analysis of Relational Behavior Dynamics in Humans
11:09

RBDT: A Computerized Task System based in Transposition for the Continuous Analysis of Relational Behavior Dynamics in Humans

Published on: July 17, 2021

3.2K
Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning
14:38

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Published on: November 2, 2012

12.0K
Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios
07:43

Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios

Published on: August 4, 2023

2.4K

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Visual Perception
  • Developmental Psychology

Background:

  • The world is perceived not only through objects but also through the relations between them.
  • Representations of relations are often acquired early and favored in language.
  • The cognitive mechanisms for extracting these relations remain an active area of research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how the mind extracts complex relations from visual scenes.
  • To determine if sophisticated relations are processed automatically by the visual system.
  • To explore the role of visual perception in understanding structured relations.

Main Methods:

  • Review of existing research on visual processing of relations.
  • Analysis of studies across physical, eventive, and social domains.
  • Examination of reaction times and perceptual influence of relation extraction.

Main Results:

  • Sophisticated relations (e.g., support, fit, cause, chase, social interaction) show signatures of automatic visual processing.
  • These relations are extracted rapidly and are difficult to ignore.
  • Extracted relations influence other perceptual processes, indicating deep integration.

Conclusions:

  • Visual perception is not limited to object recognition but actively extracts and processes complex relations.
  • The visual system demonstrates a sophisticated capacity for understanding structured information.
  • These findings suggest that complex relations are fundamentally 'seen' rather than inferred post-perceptually.