CH 5 PSY 120 Flashcards
Sensation
the detection of signals in the environment by sensory receptors in the body
Perception
the organization and interpretation of this information
Absolute threshold
minimum amount of stimulation needed to detect a sensory input
Attention
Attention helps filter out unimportant info, but is limited. Focuses on processes such as sensory adaptation and selective attention
Bottom-up processing
sensory analysis that begins at the entry level—with what our senses can detect.
perceptual set/Top-down processing
our expectations of what we think we shall perceive can drive how we process perceptual information
Synesthesia
when you experience one of your senses through another.
Eyes
Each eye has approximately 130 megapixel resolution
120-125 million rods, 7-8 million cones
Fovea
a small depression in the retina of the eye where visual acuity is highest. The center of the field of vision is focused in this region, where retinal cones are particularly concentrated.
Binocular Cues
visual information taken in by two eyes that enable us a sense of depth perception, or stereopsis
Monocular Cues
refer to the ways that each of your eyes takes in visual information that’s used to judge: distance. depth. three-dimensional space.
sound localization
refers to our ability to identify the direction of a sound source. There are two different aspects to sound localization. The first is known as absolute localization, or localization acuity, and refers to our ability to judge the absolute position of a sound source in three-dimensional space. The second aspect is relative localization and refers to our ability to detect a shift in the absolute position of the sound source.
Place theory
an explanation of how human beings perceive pitch. According to place theory, the hair cells and nerve fibers of the cochlea are divided into different regions that detect specific sound frequencies.
