CASE STUDY - Palmer (1975)

Aim: to find out if what we expect to see influences what we see

Whether context would affect perception

• lab experiment
• showed participants visual scenes such as a kitchen
• then shown an object either: mail box, drum or loaf of bread.
• were then asked to identify object

four confitions were used: independant variables:

• appropriate
• inappropriate-similar
• inappropriate-different
• no context

was a repeated measures design as every partipant participated in all parts of experiment.

DEPENDANT VARIABLE = the number of correctly identified items.

the participantts identified most objects after seeing an appropriate context.

participants identified the least objects after seeing inappropriate context.

so Palmer concluded that expectations affect perception.

People have a perceptual set based on context which affects how accurately they recognise objects.

strengths

• contolled how long participants saw the object
• were given clear instructions so they knew what to do
• data from two participants not counted as they forgot glasses (could of affected results)

weaknesses

• being told what they were doing may of made them try harder in some conditions.
• try to please experimenter
• fewer results as some data couldnt be used