chapter 1 Flashcards
senses
vision
hearing
smell
taste
touch
pressure
cold/heat
pain
itch
vestibular
proprioception
sensation
- registration of a physical stimulus on our sensory receptors
- sensation changes physical stimuli into information in our nervous systems
perception
- turning the sensory input into meaningful conscious experience
stimulus
- an element of the world around us that impinges on our sensory systems
attended stimuli
- stimuli that is important/interesting/ relevant and paying attention to that as opposed to other information
transduction
- process of converting a physical stimulus into an electrochemical signal
receptors
- specialised neural cells that transform a physical stimulus into an electrochemical signal/neural response
neural response
- signal produced by the receptor cells, then sent to the brain
transduction
vision
- rods and cones in the eye transduce the physical energy of light into an electrochemical signal
- transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve
transduction
hearing
- hair cells convert the vibrating of the cochlear membrane, vibrates in response to sound into a neural response
- transmitted to the brain via the auditory/cochlear nerve
transduction
taste
- taste bud cells convert the presence of a particular chemical (ie sugar) into a neural response
- transmitted to the brain via gustatory nerves
sensation and perception difference example
- sensation allows us to hear sounds but perception allows us to appreciate music
action
- any motor activity
phenomenology
- our subjective experience of perception
motion aftereffect
- sensory experience that occurs after prolonged experience of a visual motion in one particular direction
doctrine of specific nerve energies
- it is the specific neurons activated that determine the particular type of experience
constructivist approach
- idea that perceptions are constructed using information from our senses and cognitive processes
- inadequate
unconscious inference
- perception is not adequately determined by sensory information, so inference is part of the process, past experiences
- not active problem solving but nonconscious cognitive process
Weber’s law
- a just noticeable difference between two stimuli is related to the magnitude of strength of the stimuli
2% change is detectable
psychophysics
- study of the relation between physical stimuli and perception
fechners law
- subjective sensation is proportional to the log of stimulus intensity
- eg. carrying lot of weight adding a small amount is not noticable to perception but carrying no weight and adding a small amount is noticable
gestalt psychology
- we view the world as a whole (general patterns/ structures) instead of individual elements
laws of gestalt psychology
law of proximity
law of good continuation
law of closure
law of similarity
law of common fate
direct perception (gibsonian approach) / ecological view to perception
- information in a sensory world is complex and abundant
- perceptual systems need only directly perceive such complexity
computational approach
- the necessary computations the brain would need to carry out to perceive the world are specified
neuroscience
- the study of structures and processes in the nervous system and brain
microelectrode
- device so small it can penetrate a single neuron in the mammalian central nervous system without destroying the cell
neuropsychology
- study of the relation of brain damage to changes in the brain
agnosia
- a deficit in some aspect of perception as a result of brain damage
prosopagnosia
- face agnosia, deficit in perceiving faces
amusia
- brain damage interferes with the perception of music but not other aspects of auditory processing
neuroimaging
- technologies that allow us to map living intact brains as they engage in tasks
delk and fillenbaum 1956
cognitive penetration experiment
aim
- investigate whether previous knowledge about objects influences color perception
delk and fillenbaum 1956
cognitive penetration experiment
procedure
- involved objects associated the red (apple, lips, symbolic heart)
- objects not associated with red (mushroom, bell)
- all figures made out of the same red cardboard
- asked participants to match the color of figures to the color of their background varying from light to dark red
delk and fillenbaum 1956
cognitive penetration experiment
results
- red associated objects required more red in the background to be judged as a match than did the objects not associated with red
delk and fillenbaum 1956
cognitive penetration experiment
conclusion
- suggests that the knowledge of the objects influenced participants to perceive them as being more red than other objects
delk and fillenbaum 1956
cognitive penetration experiment
evaluation
- findings were replicated
- artificial task
- alternative explanations for results
cognitive penetration
- cognitive and emotional factors influence the phenomenology of perception
cognitive impenetrability
- cetrain cognitive processes are not influenced by higher level cognitive factors such as beliefs, expectations, desires
- eg understanding a flat image isn’t moving but still seeing it that way (optical illusion)
time to time collision
- estimate of the time it will take for an approaching object to contact another
size-arrival effect
- bigger approaching objects are seen as being more likely to collide with the viewer than smaller approaching objects
