Slides from my recent talk at UX Brighton The Psychology of Design Conference, Brighton England, November 1, 2013

1. Vision, Hearing, & The Brain:
The Top 10 Things You Need
To Know About Perception
Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D.
@thebrainlady
susan@theteamw.com

5. 10. Senses perceive, but the brain
attends and interprets

6. 9. The Fusiform Facial Area (FFA) makes us
pay attention to faces

10. Fusiform Facial Area (FFA)

20. 8. We miss changes in our visual field
(inattentional blindness/change
blindness).

21. Larson, Adam, & Loschky, L (2009). The contributions of central versus
peripheral vision to scene gist recognition. Journal of Vision, 9(10:6)

22. 7. People use peripheral vision to get the “gist”.
Larson, Adam, & Loschky, L (2009). The contributions of central versus
peripheral vision to scene gist recognition. Journal of Vision, 9(10:6)

25. 6: Speaker and Listener Brains Sync
Stephens, Greg, and Hasson, U. 2010. “Speaker-listener neural coupling
underlies successful communication.” Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.

26. 17 x 24 = ?

29. In a lake there is a patch of lily pads.
Every day the patch doubles in size. If it
takes 48 days for the patch to cover the
entire lake, how long would it take for
the patch to cover half of the lake?
24 days or 47 days?

30. In a lake there is a patch of lily pads. Every
day the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48
days for the patch to cover the entire lake,
how long would it take for the patch to cover
half of the lake?
24 days or 47 days?

31. 5. When something is hard to read our
System 2 thinking is activated.

32. Song, H. & Schwarz, N. (2008). If it’s hard to read, it’s hard to do: Processing fluency
affects effort prediction and motivation. Psychological Science, 19, 986–988.

33. 8 minutes
Song, H. & Schwarz, N. (2008). If it’s hard to read, it’s hard to do: Processing
fluency affects effort prediction and motivation. Psychological Science, 19,
986–988.

34. 8 minutes
Song, H. & Schwarz, N. (2008). If it’s hard to read, it’s hard to do: Processing
fluency affects effort prediction and motivation. Psychological Science, 19,
986–988.
15 minutes

35. 8 minutes
Song, H. & Schwarz, N. (2008). If it’s hard to read, it’s hard to do: Processing
fluency affects effort prediction and motivation. Psychological Science, 19,
986–988.
15 minutes
Song, H. & Schwarz, N. (2008). If it’s hard to read, it’s hard to do:
Processing fluency affects effort prediction and motivation.
Psychological Science, 19, 986–988.

36. 4. Hard to read = hard to do.

37. Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
Stimulus
Response

38. Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
Stimulus
Meat
Response
Salivate

39. Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
Stimulus
Meat
Meat + Bell
Response
Salivate
Salivate

40. Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
Stimulus
Meat
Meat + Bell
Bell
Response
Salivate
Salivate
Salivate

42. 3. We become conditioned to unpredictable
auditory and visual cues

43. 2. People prefer objects with curves
Bar, M., & Neta,
M. (2006).
Humans prefer
curved visual
objects.
Psychological
Science, 17(8),
645-648.

47. 1. Vision and hearing can’t be separated from
our social and emotional processing.

49. Use coupon code TALK

51. THANK YOU!
Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D.
@thebrainlady
susan@theteamw.com
www.theteamw.com