Chapter 3- Sensation and Perception

Question 1

What is sensation?

Answer 1

The process through which the senese pickup visual, auditory, and other sensory stimuli and transmit them to the brain.

Question 2

What is perception?

Answer 2

The process by which sensory information is actively organized and interpreted.

Question 3

What is the absolute threshold?

Answer 3

The minimum amount of sensory stimulation that can be detected 50% of the time. It marks the difference between not being able to perceive a stimulus and being just barely able to perceive it.

Question 4

What is the difference threshold?

Answer 4

A measure of the smallest increase or decrease in a physical stimulus that is required to produce a difference in sensation that is noticeable 50% of the time.

Question 5

What is the definition for “just noticeable difference (JND)”?

Answer 5

The smallest change in sensation that a person is able to detect 50% of the time.

Question 6

What is Weber’s Law?

Answer 6

The law stating that just noticeable difference (JND) for all the senses depends on a proportion or percentage of change in a stimulus rather than on a fixed amount of change.

Question 7

What are sensory receptors?

Answer 7

Highly specialized cells in the sense organs that detect and respond to one type of sensory stimuli- light, sound, or odor, for example- and convert the stimuli into neural impulses.

Question 8

What is transduction?

Answer 8

The process through which sensory receptors convert the sensory stimulation into neural impulses.

Question 9

What is sensory adaptation?

Answer 9

The process in which sensory receptors grow accustomed to constant, unchanging levels of stimuli over time.

Question 10

What are pheromones?

Answer 10

Chemicals excreted by humans and other animals that can have a powerful effect on the behavior of other members of the same species.

Question 11

What is the gate-control theory?

Answer 11

The theory that an area in the spinal cord acts as a gate that either blocks or transmits pain messages to the brain.

Question 12

What are endorphins?

Answer 12

The body’s own natural painkillers, which block pain and produce a feeling of well-being. They are released when you feel injured, when you experience stress, extreme pain, laugh, cry, or exercise.

Question 13

What are the Gestalt Principles of perceptual organization?

Answer 13

1. Figure-ground, 2. Similarity, 3. Proximity, 4. Continuity, 5. Closure

Question 14

What does Gestalt refer to?

Answer 14

A word with no exact English equivalent, but roughly refers to the whole form, pattern, or configuration that a person perceives.

Question 15

What is figure-ground?

Answer 15

A Gestalt principle of perceptual organization. Some objects (or the figure) often seems to stand out from the background (or the ground).

Question 16

What is similarity?

Answer 16

A Gestalt principle in perceptual organization. Objects that have similar characteristics are perceived as a unit.

Question 17

What is proximity?

Answer 17

A Gestalt principle of perceptual organization. Objects that are close together in space or time are usually perceived as belonging together.

Question 18

What is continuity?

Answer 18

A Gestalt principle of perceptual organization. We tend to perceive figures or objects as belonging together if they appear to form a continuous pattern.

Question 19

What is closure.

Answer 19

A Gestalt principle of perceptual organization. WE perceive figures with gaps in them to be complete.

Question 20

What is perceptual constancy?

Answer 20

The phenomenon that allows us to perceive objects as maintaining stable properties, such as size, shape, and brightness, despite differences in distance, viewing angle, and lighting.

Question 21

What is size constancy?

Answer 21

The phenomenon that as objects move further away, you continue to perceive them as being about the same size. You do not make a literal interpretation about the size of an object from its retinal image.

Question 22

What is shape constancy?

Answer 22

The tendency to perceive objects as having stable or unchanging shape, regardless of changes in the retinal image resulting from differences in viewing angle.

Question 23

What is brightness constancy?

Answer 23

We normally see objects as maintaining a constant level of brightness, regardless of differences in lighting conditions.

Question 24

What is depth perception?

Answer 24

The ability to perceive the visual world in three dimensions and to judge distance accurately.

Question 25

What is binocular depth cues?

Answer 25

Depth cues that depend on both eyes working together.

Question 26

What is convergence?

Answer 26

Occurs when the eyes turn inward to focus on nearby objects- the closer the object, the greater the convergence.

Question 27

What is binocular disparity, or also known as retinal disparity?

Answer 27

The difference between two retinal images which provides an important cue for depth perception.

Question 28

What is an ambiguous figure?

Answer 28

When your perceptual system is puzzled and tries to resolve the uncertainty by seeing the ambiguous figure first one way and then another, but not both ways at once.

Question 29

What is an illusion?

Answer 29

A false perception or a misperception of an actual stimulus in the environment.

Question 30

What is attention?

Answer 30

Attention is defined as the process of sorting through sensations and selecting some for them for further processing.

Question 31

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 31

The phenomenon in which we shift our focus from one object to another and, in the process, fail to notice changes in objects to which we are not directly paying attention.

Question 32

What is selective attention?

Answer 32

Screening out irrelevant sensory input in order to attend to a single source of information.

Question 33

What is bottom-up processing?

Answer 33

Information processing in which individual components of a stimulus are combined int he brain and prior knowledge is used to make inferences about these patterns.

Question 34

What is top-down processing?

Answer 34

Information processing which previous experience and conceptual knowledge are applied in order to recognize the nature of a “whole” and then logically deduce the individual components of that whole.

Question 35

What is perceptual set?

Answer 35

An expectation of what will be perceived, which can affect what is actually perceived.

Question 36

What is mirror neuron system (MNS)?

Answer 36

A network of cells that the brain uses to interpret and produce motor actions and emotion-related behavior.

Question 37

What is subliminal perception?

Answer 37

The capacity to perceive and respond to stimuli that are presented below the threshold of awareness.

Question 38

What is subliminal persuasion?

Answer 38

The use of subliminal perception in advertising.

Question 39

What is extrasensory perception (ESP)?

Answer 39

Gaining information about objects, events, or another person’s thoughts through some means other than the known sensory channels.

Question 40

What is telepathy?

Answer 40

Gaining awareness of the thoughts, feelings,or activities of another person without the use of the senses. Reading someone’s mind.

Question 41

What is clairvoyance?

Answer 41

Gaining information about objects or events without use of the senses. Knowing something beforehand.

Question 42

What is precognition?

Answer 42

An awareness about the event before it occurs.

Question 43

What is synesthesia?

Answer 43

The capacity for experiencing unusual sensations along with ordinary ones.