2B : Sensation Flashcards
Bottom up processing
Analysis that begins from the sense receptors and goes up to the brains integration of sensory information.
Sensation
The process by which we take physical energy from our environment and converted to neural signals. The relationship between physical stimulus of a psychological effect.
Perception
The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events. Process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensory information.
Top down processing
The process of perception: goes to the brain and then back to our senses, “filling in the gaps”.
Psychophysics
The study of the relationship between physical energy and psychological experience.
Detection thresholds
The act of detecting a stimulus
Absolute threshold
The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time: varies with their psychological state
Signal detection theory
A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus. Biased and mood affect this as feelings heighten our reaction.
Four possible outcomes of a sense test
- Hit: Signal is present and participant senses it
- Miss: Signal is present the participant does not detect it
- false alarm: Signal is absent the participant detects they saw it
- correct rejection: one signal is absent and participant didn’t sense it
Subliminal
Below one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness. Our mind can still process it if we cannot see or hear it.
Discrimination threshold
The level of telling the difference between two stimuli or one as it changes
Difference threshold
The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time. We experience the difference threshold and as a just noticeable difference also called JND
Webbers law
Made by Ernst Weber stating that change has to be proportional to the original intensity of the stimulus for us to notice.
Sensory adaptation
Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation. Also known as getting used to something. One won’t be able to notice important differences and allows one to ignore unimportant sounds or signals
Receptor cells
Special cells designed to detect a specific type of energy
Transduction
Conversion of one form of energy into another. Also known as sensory signals that are turned into neural impulses
Contralateral shift
Opposite sides process. happens at thalamus; to all senses except smell
Electromagnetic radiation
It kind of radiation including visible light, radio waves, gamma rays, and x-rays, in which electric and magnetic field very simultaneously.
Wavelength
The distance from the peak of one light or soundwave to the peak of the next. This allows us to see different hues or colors.
Hue
The dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light.
Intensity
The amount of energy in a light or soundwave which we perceive as brightness or loudness.
Cornea
The protective layer of the eye
Iris
A colored ring of muscle tissue that controls the size of the pupil opening
Lens
The transparent structure behind the people that changes shape to help focus images on the retina
Accommodation
The process by which the eyes lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina
Acuity
The sharpness of vision
Nearsightedness
A condition in which nearby objects are seen more clearly than distant objects because distant objects focus in front of the retina
Farsightedness
A condition in which faraway objects are seen more clearly the near objects because the image of near objects is focused behind the retina.
Distal stimulus
Objects and events out in the world about you. How an object appears in the real world.
Proximal stimulus
The patterns of stimuli from these objects and events that actually read your senses. The thing that reaches your senses
Retina
The light sensitive area
Rods
Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision.
Cones
Receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well lit conditions. The cones detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations.
Fovea
The center focal point in the retina, around which the eyes cones cluster. Allows us to see detail.
Optic nerve
The nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain.
Blind spot
The point at which the optic nerve leaves that I, creating a blind spot because no receptor cells are located there. Or no rods or cones in the area.
Peripheral vision
Side vision; what is seen on the side by the eye when looking straight ahead. The outskirts of vision. Mostly made of rods.
Feature detectors
Nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement. Neurons that respond to specific features of the stimulus. David Hobbel and Torston Weisel
Ganglion cells
The last link in the chain of neurons in the retina. This change in each retinas 125 million photo receptors, which gather information and channel it, via small number of synaptic connections, to the retina is 1 million ganglion cells
Super cell cluster
Teams of cells that respond more complex patterns. They integrate info coming from feature detectors and connect them with our assumptions and beliefs.
Parallel processing
The ability to process things simultaneously
Young Helmholtz trichromatic theory
The theory that the retina contains three different color receptors-one most sensitive to read, one to green, went to blue-which when stimulated in combination can produce the perception of any color.
Opponent-process theory
The theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision.
Colorblindness
The inability to see certain colors in the usual way. there is red/green color blindness and yellow/blue color blindness
Afterimage
A visual illusion in which retinal impressions processed after the removal of the stimulus, believed to be caused by the continual activation of the visual system. Opposite color patterns after you shift your views.
Color constancy
Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.
Amplitude
The strength or height of soundwaves (allows us to notice the loudness).
Frequency
The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second). Allows us to hear pitch: how high or how low a tone is. Measured in megahertz.
Decibels
Unit used to measure intensity or energy.85 dB: brain-damaged prone.
Auditory canal or ear canal
The narrow passageway from the outer ear to the eardrum. Channel soundwaves into the inner eat.
Eardrum
A membrane of the middle ear that vibrates in response to soundwaves; the tympanic membrane.
Middle ear
The chamber between the eardrum him and the cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, Annville, and stir up) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum them on the cochlea’s oval window.
Ossicles
The small bones in the middle ear also known as the hammer or malleus, anvil or incus, and stirrup or stapes.
Oval window
Hey membrane-covered opening which leads from the middle ear to the cochlea.
Inner ear
The innermost part of the year, containing the cochlea, semicircular Canal’s, and vestibular sacs.
Cochlea
A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which soundwaves trigger nerve impulses. Has a snail shaped.
The basilar membrane
The long membrane that is part of the auditory system. Send neural impulses to the auditory nerve.
Auditory nerve
A bundle of nerve fibers that sends information from the cochlea to the brain
Place theory
In hearing, the theory that links the pitch we here with the place where the cochlea’s membrane is stimulated. We hear pitches because the pitch islinked to the cochlea’s basilar membrane. Usually associated with high pitches.
Frequency theory
In hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, this enabling us to sense it’s pitch. Usually associated with low pitches
Localizing sounds
The ability to pinpoint the source and location of the sound, using input from the ears, as well as cognitive processes. Stereophonics-detect my new differences in the intensity and the timing of the sound received by each year.
Conduction hearing loss
Hearing loss caused by damage to mechanical system that conducts soundwaves to the cochlea.
Sensorineural heating loss
Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea’s receptor cells or to the auditory nerves, also called nerve deafness. Meningitis/high fever =sensorineural hearing loss
Touch
Contains four sentences: pressure, warmth, cold, and pain-combined to produce other sensations.
Cutaneous tactile receptors
Touch receptors
Pressure and movement versus pain and temperature
Pressure and movement: go through fast, conducting, myelinated neurons that into the spinal cord then to the medulla then to the thalamus and then to the sensory cortex.
Pain and temperature: fast, conducting, myelinated neurons which go to the spinal cord going to the limbic system then to the sensory cortex
Pain
A property not only of the senses-of the region where we feel it-but of the brain as well. Pain is good sometimes because it’s the body’s way of telling us something is wrong.
Gate control theory
The theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological “gate” that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. The “gate” is open by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain.
Taste
Also known as gustation-chemical senses. Types of taste: sour (), sweet (glucose), better (poison), salty, umami (how rich Meat is (proteins))
Papillae
One of the small, round or cone-shaped protuberances on the top of the town that contain taste buds. Information goes from the Papali to the taste buds to the Medela to the pons to the thalamus hypothalamus then to the limbic system
Smell
Also known as off action; a chemical sense without basic sensation has 10 to 20,000,000 or factory receptors that are individual order molecule
Olfactory bulb
A neural structure of the vertebrate for brain involved in all faction or the sense of smell. Goes from the olfactory bulb to the amygdala to the hippocampus
Sensory interaction
The principle that one sends me influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste.
Vestibular sense
The sense of the body movement and position, including the sense of balance.
Kinesthesis
The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts
