Ch 4 - Sensation, Attention, and Perception Flashcards

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1
Q

Devices that convert one kind of energy into another.

A

What are transducers?

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2
Q

Conversion of energy from the environment into a pattern of response by the nervous system.

A

What is sensation?

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3
Q

Study of how the mind interprets the physical properties of stimuli.

A

What is psychophysics?

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4
Q

Minimum amount of physical energy that can be detected 50 percent of the time.

A

What is the absolute threshold?

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5
Q

Minimum difference in physical energy between two stimuli that can be detected 50 percent of the time.

A

What is the difference threshold?

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6
Q

Colour of light, as determined by its wavelength.

A

What is hue?

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7
Q

Curved, transparent, protective layer through which light enters the eye.

A

What is the cornea?

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8
Q

Clear structure behind the pupil that bends light toward the retina.

A

What is the lens?

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9
Q

Changes in the shape of the lens of the eye to enable the seeing of close and far objects.

A

What is accomodation?

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10
Q

Having difficulty on distant objects (nearsightedness).

A

What is myopia?

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11
Q

Defects in the cornea, lens, or eye that cause some areas of vision to be out of focus.

A

What is astigmatism?

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12
Q

Farsightedness caused by aging.

A

What is presbyopia?

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13
Q

Surface at the back of the eye onto which the lens focuses light rays.

A

What is the retina?

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14
Q

Photoreceptors that are sensitive to colour.

A

What are cones?

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15
Q

Photoreceptors for dim light that produce only black and white sensations.

A

What are rods?

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16
Q

The sharpness of visual perception.

A

What is visual acuity?

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17
Q

Area in the retina where the optic nerve exits that contains no photoreceptor cells.

A

What is the blind spot?

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18
Q

Structure that conveys visual information away from the retina to the brain.

A

What is the optic nerve?

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19
Q

Tiny spot in the center of the retina, containing only cones, where visual acuity is greatest.

A

What is the fovea?

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20
Q

A total inability to perceive colour.

A

What is colour blindness?

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21
Q

An inability to distinguish some colours.

A

What is colour weakness?

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22
Q

Vision at the edges of the visual field.

A

What is peripheral (side) vision?

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23
Q

Increased light sensitivity of the eye under low-light conditions.

A

What is dark adaptation?

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24
Q

The black opening inside the iris that allows light to enter the eye.

A

What is the pupil?

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25
Q

Coloured structure on the surface of the eye surrounding the pupil.

A

What is the iris?

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26
Q

A theory of colour vision based on three cone types: red, green, and blue.

A

What is trichromatic theory of colour vision?

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27
Q

Proposition that colour vision is based on coding things as red or green, yellow or blue, or black or white.

A

What is opponent-process theory of colour vision?

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28
Q

How high or low a tone sounds; related to the frequency of a sound wave.

A

What is pitch?

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29
Q

The volume of a sound; related to the amplitude of a sound wave.

A

What is loudness?

30
Q

Membrane that vibrates in response to sound waves and transmits them inward.

A

What is the eardrum?

31
Q

Snail-shaped organ in the inner ear that contains sensory receptors for hearing.

A

What is the cochlea?

32
Q

Structure in the cochlea containing hair cells that convert sound waves into action potentials.

A

What is the basilar membrane?

33
Q

Receptor cells within the cochlea that transduce vibrations into nerve impulses.

A

What are hair cells?

34
Q

Poor transfer of sounds from the eardrum to the inner ear.

A

What is conductive hearing loss?

35
Q

Loss of hearing caused by damage to the inner-ear hair cells or auditory nerve.

A

What is sensorineural hearing loss?

36
Q

Damage caused by exposing the hair cells to excessively loud sounds.

A

What is noise-induced hearing loss?

37
Q

Proposition that pitch is decoded from the rate at which hair cells of the basilar membrane are firing.

A

What is the frequency theory of hearing?

38
Q

Proposition that higher and lower tones excite specific areas of the cochlea.

A

What is the place theory of hearing?

39
Q

Sense of smell.

A

What is olfaction?

40
Q

Sense of taste.

A

What is gustation?

41
Q

The senses of touch, pressure, pain, heat, and cold.

A

What are the skin senses?

42
Q

The senses of body movement and positioning.

A

What are the kinesthetic senses?

43
Q

Perception of balance, gravity, and acceleration.

A

What are the vestibular senses?

44
Q

A theory holding that odors are related to the shapes of chemical molecules.

A

What is the lock-and-key theory of olfaction?

45
Q

Receptor cells for taste.

A

What are taste buds?

46
Q

Pain based on large nerve fibers; warns that bodily damage may be occuring.

A

What is the warning system?

47
Q

Pain based on small nerve fibers; reminds the brain that the body has been injured.

A

What is the reminding system?

48
Q

A theory proposing that pain messages pass through neural “gates” in the spinal cord.

A

What is gate control theory?

49
Q

The process by which the brain combines information coming from multiple senses.

A

What is multimodal integration?

50
Q

A failure to notice a stimulus because attention is focused elsewhere.

A

What is inattentional blindness?

51
Q

A failure to notice that the background is changing because attention is focused elsewhere.

A

What is change blindness?

52
Q

The process by which attention is withdrawn from the physical environment to focus on internal events.

A

What is mind-wandering?

53
Q

A perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory system creates perceptual experiences in another sensory system.

A

What is synesthesia?

54
Q

Selection, organization, and interpretation of sensory input.

A

What is perception?

55
Q

A misleading or misconstructed perception.

A

What is an illusion?

56
Q

Perception with no basis in reality.

A

What is a hallucination?

57
Q

A mental model of external events.

A

What is perceptual construction?

58
Q

Organizing perceptions by beginning with low-level features.

A

What is bottom-up processing?

59
Q

Perception guided by prior knowledge or expectations.

A

What is top-down processing?

60
Q

Organizing a perception so that part of a stimulus appears to stand out as an object against a less prominent background.

A

What is figure-ground organization?

61
Q

The principle that the perceived shape of an object is unaffected by changes in its retinal image.

A

What is shape constancy?

62
Q

The principle that the perceived size of an object remains constant, despite changes in its retinal image.

A

What is size constancy?

63
Q

The principle that the apparent (or relative) brightness of objects remains the same so long as they are illuminated by the same amount of light.

A

What is brightness constancy?

64
Q

Two equal-length lines tipped with inward or outward pointing Vs appear to be of different lengths.

A

What is the Muller-Lyer illusion?

65
Q

The ability to see 3-D space and to judge distances accurately.

A

What is depth perception?

66
Q

Features of the environment and messages from the body that supply information about distance and space.

A

What are depth cues?

67
Q

Perceptual features that impart information about distance and 3-D space that requires two eyes.

A

What are binocular depth cues?

68
Q

Difference between the images projected onto each eye.

A

What is retinal disparity?

69
Q

Perception of space and depth as a result of each eye receiving different images (retinal disparity).

A

What is stereoscopic vision?

70
Q

Degree to which the eyes turn in to focus on a close object (which tells the brain how far away the object is).

A

What is convergence?

71
Q

Perceptual features that impart information about distance and 3-D space that require just one eye.

A

What are monocular depth cues?

72
Q

Monocular depth cues found in paintings, drawings, and photographs that impart information about space, depth, and distance.

A

What are pictorial depth cues?