Chapter 4 & 5: Sensation And Perception

Question 1

Accessory structures

Answer 1

Structures, such as the lens of the eye, that modify a stimulus.

Ex. Outer part of the ear has an accessory structure that helps to collect and redirect sound.

Question 2

Neural receptors

Answer 2

Specialized cells that detect certain forms of energy and transduce them into nerve cell activity

Ex. Touching something hot, nerves send message

Question 3

Specific energy doctrine

Answer 3

The discovery that stimulation of a particular sensory nerve provided codes for that sense, no matter how the stimulation takes place.

Ex. Applying gentle pressure to your closed eye will produce activity in the optic nerve and you will sense little lights

Question 4

Loudness

Answer 4

A psychological dimension of sound determined by the amplitude of a sound wave.

Ex. Describes as decibels

Question 5

Pitch

Answer 5

How low or high a tone sounds.

Ex. Depends on frequency of sound wave.

Question 6

Timbre

Answer 6

The mixture of frequencies and amplitudes that make up the quality of sound.

Ex. What allows you to tell the difference between the same not played on a flute vs. the violin

Question 7

Ocular accommodation

Answer 7

The ability of the lens to change its shape and bend light rays so that objects are in focus.

Ex. Can lose flexibility and result in “far sighted”

Question 8

Photoreceptors

Answer 8

Specialized cells in the retina that code light energy into nerve cell activity.

Photopigments generate a signal to the brain

Question 9

Photopigments

Answer 9

Chemicals in photoreceptors that respond to light and assist in converting light into nerve cell activity.

Ex. When you come out of a dark movie theater and your eyes take a while to adjust, it’s because your photoreceptors do not have enough photopigments yet.

Question 10

Dark adaption

Answer 10

The increasing ability to see in the dark as time in the dark increases.

Ex. Get used to walking around dark house after light has been turned off for a while.

Question 11

Visual acuity

Answer 11

Visual clarity, which is greatest in the fovea because of its large concentration of cones.

Ex. Ability to see small details.

Question 12

Optic chiasm

Answer 12

Part of the bottom surface of the brain where half of each optic nerves fibers cross over to the opposite side of the brain.

Info from right side of visual field goes to left side of brain.

Question 13

Hue

Answer 13

The essential “color” determined by the dominant wavelength of light.

Wavelength of yellow is less than red

Question 14

Color saturation

Answer 14

The purity of color.

A color is more pure if one wave length has more energy than the other.

Question 15

Brightness

Answer 15

The overall intensity of all the wavelengths That make up light

Ex. Yellow is brighter than dark purple.

Question 16

Proprioceptive senses

Answer 16

The sensory systems that allow us to know about body position and what each part of our body is doing

Ex. Knowing your legs are crossed while you’re writing

Question 17

Proprioceptors

Answer 17

Receptors in muscled and joints that provide information to the brain bout movement and body position.

Ex. Moving your arm-> receptors in joints transduce mechanical energy into nerve cell activity.

Question 18

Perception

Answer 18

The process through which people take raw sensations from the environment and interpret them, using knowledge, experience, and understanding of the world, so that the sensations become meaningful experiences.

Question 19

Psychophysics

Answer 19

An area of research focusing on the relationship between the physical characteristics of environmental stimuli and the psychological experiences those stimuli produce.

Ex. Physical processing of information and how they perceive it.
(Lights-> experimentalism-> Wihelm Wundt)

Question 20

Sublimation stimulation

Answer 20

Stimulation that is too weak or brief to be perceived.

This is below our “absolute threshold”

Question 21

Signal detection theory

Answer 21

A mathematical model of what determines a persons report that a near the whole stimulus has or has not occurred.

Variability rather than notion of absolutes.

Question 22

Perceptual organization

Answer 22

The task of determining what edges and other stimuli go together to form and object.

Fed Ex’s Arrow

Question 23

Figure ground discrimination

Answer 23

The ability to organize a visual scene so that it contains meaningful figures set against a less relevant ground.

Question 24

Gestalt laws

Answer 24

Proposed number of principles that describe how perceptual systems group stimuli into a world of shape and objects

Question 25

Proximity

Answer 25

The closer objects or events are to one another, the more likely we are to perceive them as belonging together.

Question 26

Similarity

Answer 26

Perceive similar events as part of a group.

Question 27

Continuity

Answer 27

When sensations appear to creat a continuous form, we tend to perceive them as belonging together.

Question 28

Closure

Answer 28

We tend to fill in missing contours to form a complete object

Question 29

Texture

Answer 29

When basic features of stimuli have the same texture

Question 30

Simplicity

Answer 30

We tend to see features of stimulus in a way that provides the smallest interpretation.

Question 31

Common fate

Answer 31

When objects move in the same direction at the same speed, we perceive them as together.

Ex. Dancers that move in unison

Question 32

Depth perception

Answer 32

The ability to perceive distance.

We see 3-D even though we receive info from 2-D retinas

Question 33

Interposition

Answer 33

A depth cue whereby closer objects block ones view of things farther away.

Chalk art

Question 34

Gradient of textures

Answer 34

A graduated change in the texture, or grain, of the visual field whereby objects with finer, less detailed textures are perceived as more distant

Question 35

Motion parallax

Answer 35

A depth cue whereby a difference in apparent rate of movement of different objects provides information about the relative distance of those objects.

Question 36

Retinal disparity

Answer 36

A depth cue based on the difference between two retinal images.

Closing one eye. Vs the other.

Question 37

Perceptual constancy

Answer 37

The perception of objects as constant in size, shape, color, and other properties despite changes in their retinal images

Ex. Person is walking towards you and getting closer NOT getting bigger

Question 38

Parallel distribution processing

Answer 38

A theoretical model of object recognition in which various elements of the object are thought to be simultaneously analyzed by several widely distributed but connected neural units in the brain.

Ex. “Visualize and apple” -> smell, taste, color, etc. all come together to visualize object. (Brain is pulling multiple sensory experiences together at the same time)