Chapter 3 Flashcards
is the ability of your sensory organs to pick up energy in the environment around you and transmit it to your brain
Sensation
the minimum level of a stimulus necessary for you to detect its presence at least half of the time
absolute threshold
the smallest change in a stimulus necessary for you to detect it at least half of the time.
difference threshold
the controversial notion of perception without sensation.
Extrasensory Perception(ESP)
the study of topics that fall outside the range of mainstream psychology.(psychological information that is not supported by science but may appear to be.)
parapsychology
the tendency of your sensation of a stimulus to decrease when the stimulus remains constant. Get use to your surrounding like getting use to snore .
Sensory adaptation/Habituation
your brain’s ability to maintain the same perception of an object even when conditions around it cause it to produce different sensations
perceptual constancy
paying more attention to one sensory channel than others.( Like focusing on your friend’s voice when they are talking.)
Selective attention
a failure to notice changes in your visual field simply because you expect otherwise.( In a very short time, you could fail to see something important and potentially dangerous.)
Change blindness/Inattentional blindness
the ability of your brain to interpret the raw sensations it has taken in. is your brain’s ability to translate the sights, sounds, and smells into something meaningful or understandable.
Perception
an organized whole that you perceive as different from just the sum of its parts.(when your eyes see these patterns of black on a white background, you form a gestalt of a soccer ball.)
Gestalt principles: figure-ground principle
a way of processing information in which what you sense becomes a perception with no influence of expectations or previous experiences.(when you visit a new restaurant that features tastes, smells, sights, and sounds from a part of the world you’ve never seen)
Bottom-up processing
a way of processing information in which your expectations or previous experiences influence what you perceive.( when you sit at “your” table in your favorite old restaurant and order the usual from the server who knows you by name)
Top-down processing
the ability to see
Vision
the rear part of the eyeball that receives visual stimulation and sends it to the brain via the optic nerve.( a screen at the back of your eye.)
retina
sense of hearing
Audition
are receptor cells in the retina that detect shades of gray and allow us to see in low light
rods
are receptor cells in the retina that detect color when light is plentiful. c=color
cones
is your ability to judge the distance and depth of objects.
Depth perception
qualities of visual stimuli that indicate depth when you use both eyes. help us when we look at things in three dimensions
binocular depth cues
qualities of visual stimuli that indicate depth when you use only one eye.( helps us see how big two things are in comparison to each other)
monocular depth cues
the color of light, as determined by its wavelength
wavelength/color (hue)
an explanation of color vision based on the idea that your cones are specialized to sense either red, green, or blue.
Trichromatic theory
An explanation of color vision based on the idea that your visual system is specialized to sense specific opposite pairs of colors (like red–green or blue–yellow)
opponent-process theory
a spiral fluid-filled structure in the inner ear that sends sound waves to the brain via the auditory nerve. Vibrations of blank are the final step of hearing within the ear.
cochlea
is the description of how “high” or “low” a sound is
wavelength/pitch
She is probably best-known for her work on colour vision. she developed the Ladd-Franklin theory, which emphasized the evolutionary development of increased differentiation in colour vision and assumed a photochemical model for the visual system.
Christine Ladd-Franklin, Ph.D.
is your sense of smell.
olfaction
is your sense of taste
gustation
are the senses you experience through your skin, primarily touch, temperature, and pain
somatosenses
is your sense of the position and movement of your body parts
kinesthetic sense
your sense of balance.
vestibular sense
