chapter 3 Flashcards
What is sensation?
An involuntary process but which our senses receive information from the environment
Occurs when a receptor cell is stimulated
What is perception?
Higher order processing of sensory information which is in part dependent upon previous knowledge
What is top down processing?
strategy of information processing and knowledge ordering, starting first with the high-level aspects and then working your way down to the fine details.
An example of this would be recognizing someone you know.
What is bottom up processing?
strategy of information processing and knowledge ordering, known as “small chunk” processing and suggests that we attend to or perceive elements by starting with the smaller, more fine details of that element and then building upward until we have a solid representation of it in our minds.
An example of this would be trying to figure out something diferent about someone you know.
What is psychophysics?
In psychology, the study of relationships between physical stimuli and resulting sensations/mental states.
What is Just Noticeable Difference?
The size of the of the difference in a stimulus characteristics needed for a person to detect a difference between two stimuli or a change in a single stimulus.
What is Difference Threshold?
is the minimum difference in stimulation that a person can detect 50 percent of the time
What is Weber’s Law?
A constant percentage of magnitude change is necessary to detect a difference - calculated to be about 5%
What is Absolute Threshold?
The magnitude of the stimulus needed, on average, for an observer to detect it half the time it is present.
What is the stroop affect?
test that demonstrates interference in task reaction time. This particular test uses words that name colors, but then print those names in a color different from the one being named. For example, the word “Blue” may be written in red. When asked to read these words aloud, a mental conflict occurs between the task of reading the word and identifying the color and requires more mental effort to actually perform the task itself.
What is the signal detection theory?
What people detect signals in some situations but not in others? (Sensativity - too faint to notice, Bias-how vitaly important is it to detect the signal correctly)
Signal is always embeded in noise
What is attention as it relates to awareness?
The focus on particular information
What is selective attention?
Particular object, quality or event for detaited analysis. purposely focusing your conscious awareness onto a specific stimulus.
What is light energy called and how is it measured?
Photons! And it’s measured by:
Amplitude: the height of the waves in a light waveor sound wave
Frequency: The number of light wavesor sound waves that move past a given point per second
Wavelength: The distance between the arrival of peaks of a light wave or sound wave
What light wave length (in nanometers) can the human eye detect?
400-700nm
What are rods?
very sensative to light, allow us to see shades of grey, white and black
each eye contains 100-120 million rods
gross detail, night/low light vision
What are cones?
not as sensative to light, but allow us to see color
each eye contains 5-6 million cones
fine details and daytime light
What is transduction?
When the eye converts electromagnetic energy that is light into neural impulses/signals.
What is accomodation?
Adomatic adjustment the eye makes to see at particular distances
What is dark adaption?
Process that leads to increased sensativity to light after being in the dark
what does the pupil do?
regulates light
what does the iris do?
contains the muscles that contract the eye
what does the cornea do?
protects the eye from injury
what is the retina?
sheet of tissue at the back of the eye, containing receptor cells that convert light to neural signnals
what is the fovea?
area of retina with the highest density of cones and highest resolution
what is the optic nerve?
axons of ganglion cells are gathered into a single large cord
what are ganglion cells?
collect signal from retina and pass to optic nerve
Why do we see color
evolution, neded to see edible fods, better survival
What are the properties of color?
Hue: Differing wavelengths produce different colors
Satuation: Purity of input (amount of white mixed in)
Lightness: amplitude of waves
What is the trichromatic theory?
the eye has 3 kinds of color sensors. Cones detect specific wavelenth s and blend together to product colors
What is the opponent process theory?
in some pairs of color, the presences of one color inhibits our sensing the other color in the same location on the retina (complementary colors)
What is after image?
image left being by previous perception
What are opponent cells
respond to one colors from a pair at a time and inhibit sensing the other color form the pair
what is color blindness?
can’t distinguish between one or more hues from each other, or can’t see hues all together. Some people can’t see the a particular wave length etc
Most of the time it’s genetic and from birth
What is figure in perceptual organization?
A set of perceptual characteristics (such as shape, color and texture) that correspond to an object
What is ground in perceptual organization?
The background
Describe the gestalt principles
Proximity: objects near one another are grouped together as a perceptual unit
Continuity: Visual characteristic that fall along a smooth curve or a straight line tend to be grouped together.
Similarity: similar items tend to be grouped together including by lightness, orientation, size
Closure: fill in missing parts of a shape
Good form: visual characteristics that form a single shape are grouped together
What are bionocular cues?
cues to distance when both eyes are working together
What is retinal disparity?
The difference between the images striking the retinas of the two eyes; also called binocular disparity
What is stereopsis?
Stereopsis refers to our ability to perceive depth and see things in 3D.
What are motion cues?
Information that specifices the distance of an object bases on it’s movement
what are monocular static cues?
Information that specifies the distance of an object that can be picked up with one eye without movement of the object or eye
What is texture gradient?
An increase in the density of the tecture of an object with increasing distance
What are the theories of patern recognition?
template matching theory
feature analysis
geon theory
prototype matching
What is template matching theory?
We must be matching what we perceive with what is stored to recognize an object or face
if 1 to 1 matching is necessary, we would have to hve billions of images or templates stored. (not possible)
What is feature analysis?
Complex stimuli are identified by a small number of features such as lines, vertices
Stimuli are analyzed by component analysis
What is geon theory?
Computational approach
24 distinct forms from which all objects are composed - Erving Bedermein
Recognize by components
Example of bottom up processing
this theory is almost as restrictive as feautre analysis
What is prototype matching?
Most relevant
Stored representation
input is broken
Recognition consists of comparing features
What is blindsight?
being aware or seeming like they can see without being able to see
What is Priming?
Priming is an acuteness to stimuli because of exposure to a certain event or experience. For example, an individual who has just purchased a new car may now start to notice with more frequency other people driving her same make and model.
What is subliminal perception?
Subliminal perception occurs whenever stimuli presented below the threshold or limen for awareness are found to influence thoughts, feelings, or actions.
what is repetition blindness?
The inabolity to se the second instance of a stimulus when it appears soon after the first instance
What is attentional blink?
A rebound period in which a person cannot pay attention to a second stimulus after havingjust paid attention to another one.
What is visual agnosta?
not able to recognize an object
What is achromatopsia?
color blindness
What is Akinetopsia?
can’it see motion properly
What is aperceptive Agnosia?
can’t understand where something is in a visual space
What is associative agnosia?
Visual image lack meaning
What is prosopnosia?
can’t identify faces
What is blindsight?
blind in portions of the visual field
What is unilateral neglect?
inability of a person to process and perceive stimuli on one side of the body or environment, where that inability is not due to a lack of sensation.
What lobe is the “where pathway” in?
parietal lobe
What lobe is the “what pathway” in?
temporal lobe
What is fusiform face area?
is a part of the human visual system, located in the temporal lobe, that, it is speculated, is specialized for facial recognition, although there is some evidence that it also processes categorical information about other objects, in particular familiar ones.
What do we know about gaze direction?
Identification of a persons gaze may be automatic but actually looking in that direction is voluntary.
What are two key components of sound waves?
Pitch (Hertz)
Volume
What is frequency theory?
The theory that higher frequencies product higher rates of neaural firings
What is place theory?
The their that different frequencies activate difference places along the basilar membrane
What is tonotopic organization?
Tonotopic maps are a particular case of topographic organization, similar to retinotopy in the visual system. Tonotopy in the auditory system begins at the cochlea, the small snail-like structure in the inner ear that sends information about sound to the brain.
What is the eardrum?
a thin flap of skin at the end of the ear canal.
What is the ossicles?
middle ear: space between the eardrum and the inner ear, where three tiny bones are located
What is the hammer?
passes vibrations from the eardrum to the anvil
What is the anvil?
passes vibrations from the hammer to the stirrup
What is the stirrup?
The stirrup connects with a special opening in the cochlea called the “oval window.”The piston-like action generates vibrations in the fluid-filled inner ear that are used to signal the brain of a sound event.
What is the cochlea?
is a bony, spiral-shaped, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves travel and trigger nerve impulses. The cochlea looks very much like a snail and is a vital component in hearing. Nerve impulses that send auditory signals to the brain for interpretation are sent from it.
What is the basilar membrane?
This is a long membrane that is part of the auditory system. The membrane runs the length of the cochlea (inside the ear) and contains those tiny hairs that act as sound receptors.
What is the hair cells?
produce initial nerve signal
What are the 3 parts of the ear?
Outer ear, middle ear, inner ear
What is deafness?
- Nerve deafness damage to inner ear
- Conduction deafness outer and middle ear
- Tinnitus - ringing in ears
What are two ears better than one?
so we can sort of where sounds are coming from
Sounds coming from in front or behind are harder to figure out than from it they are on the left or right
What is phonemic restoration effect?
is a perceptual phenomenon where under certain conditions, sounds actually missing from a speech signal can be hallucinated by the brain and clearly heard.
What is the cocktail party phenomenon?
The effect of not being aware of another persons conversation until you name is mentioned and then suddenly hearing it
Why are smell and taste group together as the chemical senses?
Because unlike other senses they rely on registering the presence of a specific chemical
What is olfaction?
Property of smelling
Connected directly to our brain
How do we distinguish oders?
Lock and key: when a specific molecule fits into a particular receptor the receptor sends a signal to the brain and we sense the odor
Why is our sense of smell so important?
Helps us determine if something has spoiled, odor can activate the stress response
What are pheromones and why are they important to smell?
Chemical substances that server as a means of communication.
Believe to have evolved to ensure women in clans ovulated at the same time, had children at the same time, etc so that clans could migrate quicker
What is a taste bud?
A receptor cell for taste; Microscopic structures mounted on the side of the little buds on your toungue
What are the 5 flavors that make up taste?
Sweet sour, bitter, salty, and umami
What is flavor?
Taste + Smell + touch/texture
What is soasthetic senses?
Senses that produce the perception of the body and its position in space - specifically, kinesthetic sense, vestibular sense, touch tempurature sensativity, pain and possibly magnetic sense
What is kinesthetic sense?
sense that registers movement and positioning of the limbs
What is vestibular sense?
The sense that provides information about the bodyes orientation relative to gravity
What is paradoxial cold?
it’s so hot it’s cold. You feel both one after the other in extreme conditions
What are endorphines?
Painkilling chemicals produced naturally in the brain
What is the gate control hypothesis?
The mechanism that allows top-down processing to inhibit interneaurons that send pain signals to the brain
What is magnetic sense?
Sensing magnetic fields
What is Extrasensory perception?
ESP the ability to perceive and know things without using the ordinary senses
