Part 1:
Given that an
exhausted forest ranger may notice the faintest scent of a forest fire,
whereas much stronger but less important odors fail to catch her
attention. this fact would be of greatest relevance to signal detection theory.
Signal detection theory is a means to quantify the ability to discern between information-bearing patterns (called stimulus in living organisms, signal in machines) and random patterns that distract from the information (called noise, consisting of background stimuli and random activity of the detection machine and of the nervous system of the operator).
Part 2:
Gestalt psychologists emphasized that the whole may exceed the sum of its parts.
Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that
believes all objects and scenes can be observed in their simplest
forms. Sometimes referred to as the 'Law of Simplicity,' the theory
proposes that the whole of an object or scene is more important than its
individual parts.
