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Psych > Chapter 3: Sensation and Perception > Flashcards

Chapter 3: Sensation and Perception Flashcards

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1
Q

What is sensation?

A

The activation of the sense organs by a source of physical energy (including our 5 senses – vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch)

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2
Q

What is perception?

A

The sorting out, interpretation, analysis, and integration of stimuli carried out by the sense organs and brain.

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3
Q

What is the absolute threshold?

A

The smallest intensity of a stimulus that must be present for it to be detected.

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4
Q

What is difference threshold?

A

The smallest level of added (or reduced) stimulation required to sense that a change in stimulation has occurred.

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5
Q

What is Weber’s law?

A

States that a just noticeable difference is a constant proportion of the intensity of an initial stimulus.

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6
Q

What is sensory adaptation?

A

The adjustment in sensory capacity after prolonged exposure to unchanging stimuli.

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7
Q

What does the ray of light hit first in the eye?

A

The cornea

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8
Q

What does the cornea do?

A

A transparent, protective window that refracts light as it passes to focus it more sharply.

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9
Q

What is the pupil?

A

The dark hole in the centre of the iris which will increase/decrease depending on the amount of light.

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10
Q

What is the iris?

A

The coloured part of the eye which controls the size of the pupil.

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11
Q

What is the retina?

A

The retina converts the electromagnetic energy of light to electrical impulses for transmission to the brain – it turns upside down

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12
Q

What are the two kinds of light-sensitive receptors in the retina?

A

Rods and cones

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13
Q

What are rods?

A

Thin cylindrical nerve receptor cells that are highly sensitive to light

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14
Q

What are cones?

A

Cone-shaped, light-sensitive receptor cells that are responsible for sharp focus and colour perception, particularly bright light.

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15
Q

What is the fovea?

A

The particularly sensitive region of the retina where cones are concentrated.

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16
Q

What do bipolar cells do?

A

Receive information directly from the rod and cones and communicate that information to the ganglion cells.

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17
Q

What is the ganglion cell?

A

They collect and summarize visual information, which is then moved out of the back of the eyeball and sent to the brain through a bundle of ganglion axons called the optic nerve.

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18
Q

What creates a blind spot?

A

The optic nerve passing through the retina as there are no rods or cones in the area.

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19
Q

Where does the octive nerve split?

A

optic chiasm

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20
Q

What is feature detection?

A

The fact that some cells are activated only by certain lines with a particular ship, width, or orientation.

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21
Q

What is the trichromatic theory of colour vision?

A

Suggests that there is 3 kinds of cones in the retina, each which responds primarily to a specific range of wavelengths (responsive to violet-blue, green, and yellow-red).

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22
Q

What is the opponent-process theory of colour vision?

A

Cone receptor cells that are linked to form three opposing colour pairs, working in opposition with each other. (blue-yellow, red-green, and black white pairings).

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23
Q

What does the outerear (pinna) do?

A

It acts as a reverse megaphone, designed to collect and bring sound into the internal portion of the ear.

24
Q

What does the location of the outer ear do?

A

It helps with sound localization, the process of by which we identify the directions from which a sound is coming.

25
Q

What is sound?

A

The movement of air molecules brought about by a source of vibration

26
Q

Sound in the outer ear is funnelled where?

A

The auditory canal

27
Q

What is the eardrum?

A

The area of the ear that acts like a drum, vibrating when sound waves hit it, vibrating more when the sound is more intense.

28
Q

What are the parts of the middle ear?

A

Three bones; hammer, anvil, and the stirrup.

29
Q

What does the middle ear do?

A

They transmit vibrations to the oval window, a thin membrane leading to the inner ear and also increase its strength.

30
Q

What is the inner ear?

A

The portion if the ear that changes sound vibrations into a form in which they can be transmitted to the brain.

31
Q

Once the sound enters the inner ear through the oval window, where does it go?

A

The cochlea, a coiled tube filled with fluid that vibrates in response to sound.

32
Q

What is inside the cochlea?

A

The basilar membrane; a structure that runs through the centre of the cochlea, covered in hair cells

33
Q

What do hair cells do?

A

They’re bent by the vibrations entering the cochlea which send a neural message to the brain.

34
Q

What is frequency?

A

The number of wave cycles that occur in a second, pitch is adjusted either high or low.

35
Q

What is amplitude?

A

Feature of the wave pattern that allows us to distinguish between loud and soft sounds.

36
Q

what is the place theory of hearing?

A

The theory that different areas of the basilar membrane respond to different frequencies.

37
Q

What is the frequency theory of hearing?

A

The theory that the entire basilar membrane acts like a microphone, vibrating as a whole in response to a sound.

38
Q

What is the semicircular canal?

A

Three tubes containing fluid that sloshes through them when the head moves, signalling rotational or angular movements of the brain.

39
Q

What is the otoliths?

A

Tiny, motion-sensitive crystals in the semicircular canals that senses acceleration, up-and-down motions, as well as the constant pull of gravity.

40
Q

What is the sense of smell?

A

Olfaction; permits us to detect more than 10 000 separate smells

41
Q

What is the sense of taste?

A

Gustation; receptor cells that respond to 4 basic stimulus qualities: set, sour, salty, and bitter, (and umami?).

42
Q

What are the skin senses?

A

Touch, pressure, temperature, and pain. They all play a critical role in survival.

43
Q

What is the gate-control theory of pain?

A

The particular nerve receptors in the spinal cord that lead to specific areas of the brain related to pain.

44
Q

How can these (stimulated) gates be closed? (In the gate-control theory)

A
  1. Psychological factors: emotions, interpretations, and previous experience.
  2. Other impulses which overwhelm nerve pathways relating to pain.
45
Q

What is the Gestalt Laws of Organization?

A

A number of important principles that are valid for visual stimuli: closure, proximity, similarity, and simplicity.

46
Q

What is top-down processing?

A

Perception guided by higher-level knowledge, experience, expectations, and motivation.

47
Q

What is bottom-up processing?

A

The progression of recognizing and processing information rom individual components of a stimuli and moving to the perception of the whole.

48
Q

What is perceptual constancy?

A

The phenomenon in which physical objects are perceived as unvarying and consistent despite changes in their appearance. (ie: shape of door changes as it opens, but is still perceived as same door)

49
Q

What is depth perception?

A

The ability to view the world in 3-D and perceive distance because we have 2 eyes.

50
Q

What is binocular disparity?

A

The difference in the image seen by the left and right eye: the brain integrating two images into one composite view, but also recognizing the difference in images and uses this to estimate the distance of an object.

51
Q

What is motion parallax?

A

The change in position of an object on the retina caused by movement of your body relative to the object.

52
Q

What is relative size?

A

Two objects being the same size, the one that makes a smaller image on the retina is farther away.

53
Q

What is texture gradient?

A

Provides information about distance because the details of things that are far away are less distinct.

54
Q

What are monocular cues?

A

Cues that permit us to obtain and sense depth and distance with just one eye; motion parallax, relative size, and texture gradient.

55
Q

What is apparent movement>

A

The perception that a stationary object is moving occurring when different areas of the retina are quickly stimulated, leading us to interpret motion.

Psych (6 decks)

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