Ch4 Terms Flashcards
Psychophysics
The study of the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations that they evoke In a human.
Sensory coding
Neural signals that the sense organs use to transmit information to the brain.
Absolute threshold
The minimum amount of physical energy necessary to produce a sensation
Sensory adaptation
The separation of sensory information into important elements.
Difference threshold
The minimum difference between two stimuli that is detectable to an observer.
Selective attention
Giving priority to a particular incoming sensory message.
Inattentional blindness
A failure to notice a stimulus because attention is focused elsewhere.
Accommodation
A process where your eyes focal points changes, when muscles attached to the lens alter its shape
Hyperopia
If your eye is too short. Nearby objects will be blurred but distant objects will be sharp.
Myopia
Can’t concentrate on far of images. Near sited
Astigmatism
The eye has more than one focal point making things fuzzy.
Presbyopia
Farsightedness. Old eyes
Rods(eyes)
Rods are sensory tubes inside the eye that allows us to see shapes and the colors black and white
Cones(eyes)
Sensory tubes in the eye that allow us to see color in lit area.
Victuals acuity
The sharpness of visual perception
Trichromatic theory
A theory of colored vision based on three coding systems (red,green,blue)
Transduxters
A device that transforms one form of energy to another.
Opponent process theory
A theory of color vision based on three coding systems(red and green, yellow and blue, black and white.)
Peripheral(side) vision
Vision on the edge of the visual field.
Hair cells
Receptor cells within the cochlea that transduce vibrations into nerve impulses.
Frequency theory
A theory holding that tones up to 4,000 hertz are converted to nerve impulses that match the frequency of each tone.
Place theory
States that higher and lower tones excite specific areas of the cochlea.
Cochlea
is the auditory portion of the inner ear. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth
Conductive hearing loss
Loss of hearing caused by damage to the inner hair cells or auditory nerve.
Noise induced hearing loss
Damage caused by exposing the hair cells to excessively loud sounds.
Olfaction
The sense of smell
Gustation
The sense of taste
Lock-and-key theory of olfaction
A theory holding that odors are related to the shapes of the molecules
Somesthetic senses
Sensation produced by the skin, muscles, joints, viscera, organs of balance.
Skin senses
Senses to Pressure, touch, pain, heat, and cold
Kinesthetic
The senses of body movement and positioning.
Vestibular senses
The senses of the balance, Gravity, position in space, and acceleration.
Warning system
Pain based on large nerve fibers; warns that bodily damage may be occurring.
Reminding system
Pain based on small nerve fibers; reminds the brain that the body has been injured
Gate control theory
A theory proposing that pain messages pass through neural “gates” in the spinal cord.
Sensory conflict theory
A theory explaining motion sickness as the result of a mismatch among information from vision, the vestibular system, and kinesthesis
Illusion vs hallucination. What’s the difference
Illusion is a misconstructed perception
A hallucination is an imaginary sensation such as hearing or seeing something that isn’t there
Bottom-up processing
organizing perceptions by beginning with low level features.
Top-down processing
Applying higher-level knowledge to rapidly organize sensory information into a meaningful perception
Figure-ground organization
Organizing a perception so that part of a stimulus appears to stand out as an object(figure) against a less prominent background (ground)
Perceptual hypothesis
An initial guess regarding how to organize (perceive) a stimulus pattern.
Perceptual Constance’s
Size constancy, shape constancy, brightness constancy,
Depth perception
Is the ability to see space and to accurately judge distances.
Size constancy
The perception of an objects size remains constant even when the viewpoint of the object changes.
Depth cues
Features of the environment and message from the body that supply information about distances and space.
Binocular depth cues
Perception all features that impart information about distance and 3D space which require two eyes.
Stereoscopic vision
Perception of space and depth as a result of each eye receiving a different image.
Pictorial depth cues
Monocular depth cues found in paintings, drawings and photographs that import information about space, depth, and distance.
Perceptual learning
Changes in perception due to past experiences. Changes the way the brain process information.
Muller-lyre illusion
Two equal length lines appear to be different lengths because they are slightly angled
Perceptual habits
Ingrained patterns of organization and attention that affect our daily experience.
Perceptual expectancy (set)
A readiness to perceive in a particular manner, induced by strong expectations.
Habituation
A decrease in perceptual response to a repeated stimulus
Dishabituation
A reversal of habituation
Extrasensory perception(esp)
The purported ability to perceive events in ways that cannot be explained by the known capacities of the sensory organs.
Psi phenomena
Events that seem to lie outside the realm of accepted scientific laws.
