Basic Principles of Sensation and Perception Flashcards
What is Sensation?
The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.
What is Perception?
The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.
What is Bottom-Up Processing?
Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information
What is Top-Down Processing?
Information processing guided by higher-level mental process, as when we construct perceptions drawing from our experience and expectations.
What is selective attention?
The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.
What is inattention blindness?
Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.
What is change blindness?
Failing to notice changes in the environment.
What is transduction?
Conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transformation of stimulus energy into neural impulses.
What is psychophysics?
The study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity and our psychological experience of them.
What is absolute threshold?
The minimum stimulation required needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time.
What is the Signal Detection Theory?
A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background noise stimulation (noise).
Predicts when we will detect weak signals: “hits” and “false alarms”
What is subliminal?
Below one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness.
What is priming?
The activation often unconsciously of certain associations, thus predisposing one’s perception, memory or a response.
What is the difference threshold?
The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time.
What is jnd?
Just Noticeable Difference
