Chapter 3 - Sensation and Perception

Question 1

The study of the relationship between physical stimuli and the perceived characteristics of those stimuli; the study of how perceptual experience differs from the physical stimulation that is being perceived

Answer 1

psychophysics

Question 2

in psychophysics, the mount by which two stimuli must differ so that the difference can be perceived

Answer 2

just noticeable difference (JND)

Question 3

the result, in symbolic comparison tasks, in which two relatively different stimuli are judged more rapidly than two relatively similar stimuli because of greater symbolic distance between 1 and 8

Answer 3

symbolic distance effect

Question 4

in the mental comparison task, reaction time is speeded or judgments are made easier when the basis for a judgement is congruent or similar to the stimuli being compared; for instance, a congruent condition would be “choose the smaller of second or minute,” and an incongruent condition would be “choose the smaller of decade or century”

Answer 4

semantic congruity effect

Question 5

the reception of physical stimulation and encoding of it into the nervous system

Answer 5

sensation

Question 6

the layer of the eye covered with the rods and cones that initiate the process of visual sensation and perception

Answer 6

retina

Question 7

the highly sensitive region of the retina responsible for precise, focused vision, composed largely of cones

Answer 7

fovea

Question 8

the process of interpreting and understanding sensory information; the act of sensing then interpreting that information

Answer 8

perception

Question 9

our failure to notice changes in visual stimuli

Answer 9

change blindness

Question 10

we sometimes fail to see an object we are looking at directly, even a highly visible one, because our attention is directed elsewhere

Answer 10

inattention blindness

Question 11

the short-duration memory system specialized for holding visual information, lasting no more than about 250 ms to 500 ms

Answer 11

visual sensory memory

Question 12

the perceptual phenomenon in which a stimulus still seems to be present even after its termination, usually a few hundred milliseconds to a few seconds

Answer 12

visual persistence; iconic memory

Question 13

the number of items recallable after any short display

Answer 13

span of apprehension; span of attention

Question 14

condition in which people are to report any letters they can because the whole display is to be reported

Answer 14

whole report condition

Question 15

only one of the rows was to be reported; created by Sperling

Answer 15

partial report condition

Question 16

simple loss of information across time, presumably caused by a fading process, especially in sensory memory; also, an older theory of forgetting from long-term memory

Answer 16

decay

Question 17

an explanation for “forgetting” of some target information in which related or recent information competes with or causes the loss of the target information

Answer 17

interference

Question 18

Neisser’s term for mental attention directed toward, for example, the contents of visual sensory memory and therefore responsible for transferring that information into short-term memory

Answer 18

focal attention

Question 19

the memory system that is used across a series of eye movements to build up a more complete and stable understanding of the visual world

Answer 19

trans-saccadic memory

Question 20

Visual information endures in visual sensory memory for about 250 milliseconds after which it fades away (decays). How long does auditory sensory memory for spoken language or other complex sounds last for?

Answer 20

2-4 seconds

Question 21

Trans-saccadic memory is memory for

Answer 21

visual information across eye movements.

Question 22

This is a failure or deficit in recognizing objects.

Answer 22

agnosia

Question 23

A rapid movement of the eyes is called a _______; a brief pause of the eyes is a ________.

Answer 23

saccade, fixation

Question 24

Which is NOT one of the three layers of tissue in the retina?

Answer 24

hair cells

Question 25

The type of interference called Backward Masking refers to

Answer 25

a later stimulus drastically affects the perception of an earlier one.

Question 26

The raseon you can siltl raed and awsenr this qutseoin croctlery is bacuese you are uinsg hgehir-lveel knelowgde to inlfceune yuor radieng. This process is called

Answer 26

conceptually-driven processing.

Question 27

These are the basic 3D geometric forms in Biederman’s recognition by components (RBC) model.

Answer 27

geons

Question 28

Like the methods seen in Sperling’s experiment, the difference between partial-report and whole-report is typically used to investigate

Answer 28

iconic (or echoic) memory

Question 29

This is the number of individual items that can be heard (or seen) and immediately recalled.

Answer 29

span of apprehension

Question 30

a German term adopted into psychological terminology referring to an entire pattern, form, or configuration. The term always carries the connotation that decomposing a pattern into its components in some way loses the essential wholeness of the cohesive pattern

Answer 30

Gestalt

Question 31

a Gestalt grouping principle that is used by visual perception to segregate what part of the percept corresponds to an object, and what corresponds to the background behind it

Answer 31

figure-ground

Question 32

a Gestalt grouping principle that is used by visual perception to close up gaps in a percept to help identify a whole object

Answer 32

closure

Question 33

a model or pattern. In theories of pattern recognition, a template is the pattern stored in memory against which incoming stimuli are compared to recognize the incoming patterns

Answer 33

template

Question 34

a theoretical approach, most commonly in pattern recognition, in which stimuli (patterns) are identified by breaking them up into their constituent features

Answer 34

feature analysis/detection

Question 35

Selfridge’s early model of letter identification

Answer 35

pandemonium

Question 36

illusory movement that occurs when two or more pictures are viewed in rapid succession, as in a movie

Answer 36

beta movement

Question 37

illusory movement that occurs when two images are viewed in rapid succession in different points in space, as in a theater marquee or chasing Christmas lights

Answer 37

Phi phenomenon

Question 38

when mental processing of a stimulus is guided largely or exclusively by the features and elements in the pattern itself, this processing is described as being data-driven

Answer 38

data-driven processing; bottom-up processing

Question 39

the surrounding situation and its effect on cognition, including the concepts and ideas activated during comprehension

Answer 39

context

Question 40

the level between the input and output units in a simple three-level connectionist model

Answer 40

hidden units

Question 41

the level at which the input pattern has been categorized in a simple three-level connectionist model

Answer 41

output units

Question 42

in Biederman’s recognition by components (RBC) model, the basic primitives, the simple three-dimensional geometric forms in the human recognition system

Answer 42

geons

Question 43

a disruption in the ability to recognize objects

Answer 43

agnosia

Question 44

a disruption in the ability to recognize faces

Answer 44

prosopagnosia

Question 45

a form of agnosia in which individual features cannot be integrated into a whole percept or pattern; a basic disruption in perceiving patterns

Answer 45

apperceptive agnosia

Question 46

a form of agnosia in which the individual can combine perceived features into a whole pattern but cannot associate the pattern with meaning, cannot link the perceived whole with stored knowledge about its identity

Answer 46

associative agnosia

Question 47

the sense of hearing

Answer 47

audition

Question 48

the sensory memory system that encodes incoming auditory information and holds it briefly for further mental processing

Answer 48

auditory sensory memory; echoic memory

Question 49

the inferior recall of the end of the list in the presence of an additional meaningful nonlist auditory stimulus

Answer 49

suffix effect