chap 6 Flashcards by Emilie Pellet

Most broadly, the process of sensation can be diagrammed as follows:

physical stimulus→physiological response→sensory experience

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The physical stimulus is _

the matter or energy of the physical world that impinges on sense organs

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the physiological response is the

pattern of chemical and electrical activity that occurs in sense organs, nerves, and the brain as a result of the stimulus

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the sensory experience is the

subjective, psychological sensation or perception (e.g., the taste, sound, or sight) experienced by the individual whose sense organs have been stimulated.

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_ are specialized structures that respond to physical stimuli by producing electrical changes that can initiate neural impulses in sensory neurons.

Sensory receptors

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_ are specialized neurons that carry information from sensory receptors into the central nervous system.

Sensory neurons

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pathways send messages to many different parts of the brain, including specific _ of the cerebral cortex—for example, areas devoted to _

sensory areas

vision, hearing, and touch

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For senses to be useful, they must preserve—in the patterns of neural activity they produce—relevant information about the physical stimuli to which they are responding. That preservation of information is called _.

sensory coding

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Every form of energy can vary along at least two dimensions—a _ dimension and a _ one.

quantitative
qualitative

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The quantitative variation refers to _

the amount or intensity of energy.

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The qualitative variation refers to _. eg:

the precise kind of energy.

Lights of different wavelengths (which we perceive as different colors) are qualitatively different, as are sounds of different frequencies (which we perceive as different pitches), as are different chemicals (which we perceive as different smells or tastes).

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Each of our senses relies on _

transduction

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the neural process by which a receptor cell produces an electrical change in response to physical stimulation.

transduction

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Coding of stimulus quantity results from the fact that stronger stimuli produce _, which in turn produce _ in sensory neurons.

larger receptor potentials

faster rates of action potentials

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sensory quantity is coded in the _ and sensory quality is coded in the _.

overall rate of action potentials in sensory neurons

ratio of activity across different sets of neurons

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The change in sensitivity that occurs when a given set of sensory receptors and neurons is either strongly stimulated or relatively unstimulated for a length of time is called _.

sensory adaptation

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Psychophysics is the study of relationships between _ characteristics of stimuli and the _.

physical

sensory experiences produced by those stimuli

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Psychophysicists refer to the faintest detectable stimulus of any given type as the _ for that type of stimulus.

absolute threshold

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Another measure of sensitivity is the _, defined as the minimal difference in magnitude (or intensity) between two stimuli that is required for the person to detect them as different. It is also called the _, abbreviated _.

difference threshold

just-noticeable difference

jnd

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Weber’s law:

jnd=kM

M is the magnitude or intensity of the stimulus used as the original stimulus and k is a proportionality constant referred to as the Weber fraction, which is different for different sensory tasks

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THEORY: _, which proposes that the detection of a sensory stimulus is dependent upon both the physical intensity of the stimulus and the psychological state (including expectations, motivation, and alertness) of the perceiver.

signal detection theory (Green & Swets, 1966)

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The connections from the olfactory bulb to the _ are so strong, in fact, that the _ was at one time referred to as the , which literally means “.”

limbic system

rhinencephalon

nose brain

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Mice, like dogs and humans, can identify other individuals of their species by smell, and, remarkably, they prefer to mate with opposite-sex mice whose odor _

is most different from their own

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Researchers have found that the individual differences in odor that determine these mating preferences result from a set of about 50 highly variable genes (genes with many different alleles) referred to collectively as the _

major histocompatibility complex (MHC)

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A pheromone [fer ́-ə-mōn] is a

chemical substance that is released by an animal and acts on other members of its species to promote some specific behavioral or physiological response.

Most species of mammals have in their nasal cavities a structure called the _ [vȯ ́-mə-rō-nā ́-zəl] organ, which contains receptor cells specialized for responding to pheromones.

vomeronasal

Roughly _ different types of sensory neurons exist in olfactory nerves.

400

The receptors for taste are found on _, not directly on the sensory neurons (unlike the case for smell). These cells exist in spherical structures called _ that contain taste buds.

specialized taste receptor cells fungiform papillae

Each taste bud contains between _ receptor cells

50 and 100

Most people have between _ taste buds, about two-thirds of which are on the _ and the rest of which are on the _

2,000 and 10,000 tongue roof of the mouth and in the opening of the throat

what are the 6 tastes:

sour, bitter, sweet, salty, umami (in a lot of protein foods) and fat

Umami is also the taste produced by _, an amino acid frequently used as a flavor enhancer in _ cuisine.

monosodium glutamate (MSG) Asian

Taste receptors can trigger neural impulses in taste sensory neurons, which send input to the _ in the _.

primary taste area frontal lobe and to other parts of the brain

Pain is not only a sense but also a _

perception, an emotion, and a drive.

The anatomical basis of pain is closely related to that of the other _, such as touch and temperature sensitivity (Hendry & Hsiao, 2013). For all these senses, the receptor cells are the _.

somatosenses sensory neurons themselves

Pain neurons are _ than other neurons from the skin, and their sensitive terminals, called _, are not encased in special _, or end organs, as are the endings of touch and temperature receptors (see Figure 6.9).

thinner free nerve endings capsules

Pain sensory neurons are of two general types:

very thin, unmyelinated, slow-conducting neurons called C fibers and slightly thicker, myelinated, faster-conducting neurons called A-delta fibers

Some A- delta fibers are specialized to respond to _ (such as from a pinprick), while others are specialized to respond to _

strong pressure extremes of temperature (hot or cold).

C fibers respond to _ that produce pain, including _

all sorts of stimuli strong pressure, intense heat or cold, and chemicals that produce pain when applied to the skin

When your skin is pricked or burned, you feel two separate waves of pain: a sharp, highly localized first pain, followed (1 or 2 seconds later) by a dull, burning, more diffuse, longer-lasting second pain. The first is mediated by _, and the second by the _

A-delta fibers slower C fibers

Pain as a psychological experience can be divided meaningfully into three different components:

The sensory component of pain depends largely on the somatosensory cortex The primary emotional and motivational component of pain-cingulate cortex and the insular cortex: portions of the limbic system secondary emotional and motivational component-prefrontal cortex

The sensory component of pain depends largely on the _ cortex, the area of the _ lobe that receives input for touch and temperature as well as pain. The _ cortex appears crucial for perceiving pain as _, describing its _ (e.g., sharp or dull), and _.

somatosensory parietal somatosensory a sensation intensity and qualities locating it in a particular portion of the body

The primary emotional and motivational component of pain, which is experienced _, depends on the cingulate cortex and the insular cortex, portions of the limbic system that lie buried in the folds of the brain’s frontal lobe. People with damage to the cingulate cortex and the insular cortex experience a condition called _ for pain (Price, 2000). They can perceive a painful stimulus and describe it as such, identify the location of the pain, describe its qualities, and rate its intensity; but they do not feel a normal desire to escape the pain. The pain doesn’t bother them.

immediately asymbolia

Humans experience a third component of pain, the more cognitively based secondary emotional and motivational component—the suffering that derives from the person’s _ or about the _. The brain area that is crucial for this troubled state lies in the _—the front-most portion of the cerebral cortex —which is involved in all aspects of planning and concern for the future. People with prefrontal lobe damage feel and respond to the immediate threat and unpleasantness of pain, but they do not worry about it, just as they do not worry about or make plans based on other experiences.

worrying about the future meaning of the pain prefrontal lobe

Phantom limb pain: the lack of sensory input might trigger phantom limb pain by _.

removing a source of inhibition to the pain mechanisms of the brain

The _ theory holds that the experience of pain depends on the degree to which input from pain sensory neurons can pass through a neural “gate” and reach higher pain centers in the brain. Conditions can increase or decrease pain by opening or closing the gate.

The gate-control theory of pain (Melzack & Wall, 1965, 1996) The same degree of wound a person experiences may at one time feel excruciatingly painful and at another time be barely detected.

A major neural center for pain inhibition exists in a portion of the midbrain called the _.

periaqueductal gray (PAG)

analgesic =

pain-reducing

The body produces a variety of chemicals that act like morphine, collectively referred to as _

endorphins

Some endorphins are produced in the _ and serve as neurotransmitters to alter the activity or excitability of neurons to which they bind. Others are secreted from the _ as hormones, which enter the bloodstream and have a variety of effects both peripherally and in the central nervous system (Henry, 1986).

brain or spinal cord pituitary and adrenal glands

The decreased pain sensitivity that accompanies such highly stressful situations is known as _.

stress-induced analgesia

Many experiments have shown that stress-induced analgesia depends partly, if not entirely, on the release of _.

endorphins

As a physical stimulus, sound is _

the vibration of air or some other medium produced by an object

The height of the wave indicates the total pressure exerted by the molecules of air (or another medium) as they move back and forth. This is the sound’s _, or intensity, which we hear as the sound’s loudness.

amplitude

Sound amplitude is usually measured in logarithmic units of pressure called _

decibels (dB).

In addition to varying in amplitude, sound waves vary in _, which we hear as the sound’s _.

frequency pitch

The frequency of a sound is the rate at which the molecules of air or another medium move back and forth. Frequency is measured in _

hertz (Hz)

Sounds that are audible to humans have frequencies ranging from about _.

20 to 20,000 Hz

The _ are involved in the sense of balance, not hearing.

semicircular canals

The _ consists of the pinna, which is the flap of skin and cartilage forming the visible portion of the ear, and the auditory canal, which is the opening into the head that ends at the eardrum. The whole _ can be thought of as a funnel for receiving sound waves and transporting them inward. The vibration of air outside the head (the physical sound) causes air in the auditory canal to vibrate, which, in turn, causes the eardrum to vibrate.

outer ear outer ear

The _’s main structures are three tiny bones collectively called ossicles (and individually called the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, because of their respective shapes), which are linked to the eardrum at one end and to another membrane called the oval window at the other end.

middle ear

The main function of the _ is to increase the amount of pressure that sound waves exert upon the inner ear so that transduction can occur.

middle ear

inner ear, which consists primarily of the _, a coiled structure where transduction takes place.

cochlea

the cochlea contains a _

fluid-filled outer duct

Forming the floor of the inner duct is the _, on which are located the receptor cells for hearing, called _.

basilar membrane hair cells

It is important, however, to note that there are two general categories of deafness:

conduction deafness sensorineural deafness

sensorineural deafness

damage to the hair cells of the cochlea or damage to the auditory neurons

conduction deafness A _ aid is helpful for such people because it magnifies the sound pressure sufficiently for vibrations to be conducted by other bones of the face into the cochlea.

occurs when the ossicles of the middle ear become rigid and cannot carry sounds inward from the tympanic membrane to the cochlea. conventional hearing

People with complete sensorineural deafness are not helped by a conventional hearing aid, but can in many cases regain hearing with a surgically implanted hearing aid called a _

cochlear implant

From this observation, von Békésy hypothesized that (a) rapid firing in neurons that come from the proximal end of the membrane, accompanied by little or no firing in neurons coming from more distal parts, is interpreted by the brain as a _; and (b) rapid firing in neurons coming from a more distal portion of the membrane is interpreted as a _.

high-pitched sound lower-pitched sound

Our capacity to distinguish pitch depends not just upon the _, but also upon activity in an area of the _ called the _, which receives input from the _. This part of the brain is involved in both music perception and _.

primary auditory cortex parietal lobe of the cortex intraparietal sulcus primary auditory cortex visual space perception

we can locate a sound source within about _ degrees of its true direction

5 to 10

The outer ear _, the middle ear _ it, and the inner ear _ it.

funnels sound inward amplifies transduces and codes

Conduction deafness is due to _; sensorineural deafness is due to _

middle ear rigidity inner ear or auditory nerve damage.

For frequencies below 4,000 Hz, the timing of action potentials also _.

codes sound frequency

The traveling-wave theory helps to explain the

asymmetry of auditory masking and the typical pattern of age-related hearing loss.