Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
45 results found in perception.
- Aphantasia (Mind Blindness)
- Aphantasia is a neurological condition in which a person is unable to voluntarily create mental images or visualize objects, people, or scenes in their mind. It affects an estimated 2-5% of the popula…
- Body Awareness (Body Schema, Body Image)
- The understanding of one's own body including its structure, posture, position in space, and relationship to the environment. Body awareness encompasses both the physical sense of where body parts are…
- Body Ownership Illusion (BOI)
- A perceptual phenomenon in virtual reality where users perceive a virtual body or avatar as their own, experiencing it as an extension of their physical self. This illusion is fostered when the virtua…
- Causal Listening
- A mode of listening, identified by composer and theorist Pierre Schaeffer, in which the listener focuses on identifying the source or cause of a sound — for example, hearing crumpling paper and recogn…
- Central Vision (Foveal Vision)
- Central vision is the area of sharpest sight in the visual field, corresponding to the fovea at the centre of the retina. It is responsible for detailed tasks such as reading, recognizing faces, and d…
- Change Blindness (Changeblindness, Inattentional Blindness)
- Change blindness is a perceptual phenomenon in which observers fail to notice changes to a visual scene when the change coincides with a visual disruption such as an eye movement, blink, or brief occl…
- Cross-Sensory Translation (Sensory Substitution, Sensory Translation, Cross-Modal Translation)
- The process of converting information from one sensory modality to another — for example, representing visual information through touch, sound, smell, or taste. In exhibition accessibility, cross-sens…
- Cross-modal (Cross-modal Correspondence, Cross-modal Perception)
- The phenomenon whereby information or stimulation in one sensory modality (such as vision) systematically influences or corresponds with perception in another modality (such as hearing or touch). In a…
- Cross-modal Plasticity (Cross-modal Reorganisation, Cross-modal Cortical Recruitment, Sensory Substitution)
- A neurological phenomenon in which brain regions typically dedicated to processing one sensory modality are repurposed to process information from another sense, often as a result of sensory deprivati…
- Cybersickness (VR Sickness, Simulator Sickness, Virtual Reality Motion Sickness)
- A form of motion sickness experienced during virtual reality use, characterized by symptoms including nausea, disorientation, dizziness, eye strain, and general discomfort. Cybersickness occurs due to…
- Desensitization (Haptic Adaptation, Vibrotactile Adaptation)
- Desensitization in the context of haptic feedback refers to the gradual reduction in a person's sensitivity to continuous or repeated vibrotactile stimulation on the skin. When haptic actuators vibrat…
- Embodiment (Virtual Embodiment)
- The sense of inhabiting and controlling a virtual body in VR, feeling that the avatar is an extension of oneself rather than a separate entity. Embodiment is fostered through synchronized tracking of …
- Environmental Awareness (Situational Awareness, Environmental Sound Awareness)
- The perception and understanding of what is happening in one's physical surroundings, particularly through auditory cues. For Deaf and hard of hearing individuals, environmental awareness is often red…
- Fixation (Visual Fixation, Gaze Fixation)
- A period during which the eyes remain relatively stationary on a specific point or area, typically lasting 100 to 600 milliseconds. During fixations, the brain processes the visual information at the …
- Gestalt Grouping Principles (Gestalt Principles, Gestalt Laws of Perceptual Organization)
- A set of principles from perceptual psychology that describe how the human visual system organizes individual elements into coherent groups and patterns. Key principles include spatial proximity (elem…
- Haptic Exploration (Tactile Exploration, Touch Exploration)
- The process of acquiring spatial and object information through systematic touch and hand movements. Haptic exploration involves active manipulation and movement across surfaces to perceive shape, siz…
- Haptic Field of View (Tactile Field of View, Haptic Aperture)
- The limited area that can be perceived through touch at any given moment, analogous to the visual field of view but much more restricted. While vision allows perception of an entire scene simultaneous…
- Haptic Perception (Tactile Perception, Touch Perception)
- The ability to perceive and interpret information through the sense of touch, including the detection of texture, shape, temperature, pressure, and vibration. Haptic perception is a primary informatio…
- Immersion
- The objective level of sensory fidelity that a VR system provides, including visual quality, spatial audio, and haptic feedback that work together to create a convincing virtual environment. Unlike pr…
- Just-Noticeable Difference (JND, Difference Threshold, Differential Threshold, Just Noticeable Difference)
- The smallest detectable difference between two stimuli that a person can perceive. In accessibility contexts, JND is commonly applied to color, contrast, and audio levels—determining the minimum chang…