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examBoard: AQA
examType: GCSE
lessonTitle: Review and Practice - Gregory Theory
Richard Gregory (1923-2010) was a British psychologist who proposed that perception is an active process where we construct our understanding of the world using our past experiences and knowledge. Rather than simply responding to sensory information, Gregory believed we make intelligent guesses about what we're seeing.
Key Definitions:
Gregory proposed that perception is a two-step process:
This means perception is an active process of making informed guesses rather than passively receiving information.
According to Gregory, when we encounter ambiguous or incomplete sensory information, our brain creates a "perceptual hypothesis" - an educated guess about what we're seeing. These hypotheses are based on:
Gregory used visual illusions as evidence for his theory. He argued that illusions occur when our perceptual hypotheses are incorrect, revealing how our brain actively constructs perception rather than simply recording it.
One of Gregory's favourite examples was the hollow face illusion. When viewing a concave (pushed-in) mask of a face from a distance, people perceive it as a normal convex face. This happens because our brain has strong expectations about faces being convex (sticking out) and this prior knowledge overrides the actual sensory information. Even when we know the face is hollow, we still see it as normal - showing how powerful our perceptual hypotheses can be.
Gregory's theory is supported by several key observations:
Images like the Necker cube or duck-rabbit illusion can be perceived in two different ways. Our perception can flip between interpretations, showing how the same sensory information can lead to different perceptual hypotheses.
We perceive objects as staying the same size even when they appear smaller on our retina as they move further away. This shows how our brain uses prior knowledge about objects to interpret sensory information.
We can recognise objects from incomplete information (like a partially visible cat behind a fence) because our brain fills in the missing parts based on our knowledge of what cats look like.
Gregory's theory has practical applications in understanding everyday perceptual experiences:
When driving in fog, we use our knowledge of roads and vehicles to make sense of limited visual information. This can sometimes lead to errors if our perceptual hypotheses are wrong.
Artists and designers use our tendency to construct meaning to create optical illusions or images that can be interpreted in multiple ways.
User interface designers use our expectations about how things work to create intuitive designs. Icons rely on our ability to recognise objects from simplified representations.
Gregory's theory helps explain why eyewitness testimony can be unreliable. Witnesses often "fill in the gaps" in their memory using prior knowledge and expectations. For example, if someone witnesses a robbery and expects the perpetrator to have a weapon, they might report seeing one even if none was present. This demonstrates how our perceptual hypotheses can sometimes lead us astray, especially in high-stress situations with incomplete sensory information.
To fully understand Gregory's theory, it's helpful to compare it with other approaches:
While Gregory emphasised top-down processing and the role of past experience, James Gibson proposed a direct theory of perception. Gibson believed we directly pick up information from the environment without needing to construct meaning. For Gibson, all the information we need is already in the environment in the form of "affordances" - possibilities for action that objects provide.
For example:
When answering exam questions on Gregory's constructivist theory, remember these key points:
Gregory's constructivist theory proposes that perception is an active process where we:
This theory helps explain why different people might perceive the same thing differently and why our perception can sometimes be inaccurate despite usually being reliable.
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