Chapter 4 Flashcards
What is sensation?
Detection of physical energy by the sense organs
What is perception?
The brain’s interpretation of raw sensory data
What is an illusion?
When the way we perceive a stimulus does not match reality
What is transduction?
External stimulus converted by a sense receptor into neural activity
When is activation highest?
When stimulus is first detected, then sensory adaptation occurs
What is psychophysics?
Study of how we perceive sensory stimuli based on their physical characteristics
What is Absolute threshold?
Lowest level of a stimulus we can detect 50% of the time
What is Just Noticeable differences?
The smallest amount of stimulus change humans can detect
What is Weber’s law?
The stronger the stimulus, the greater the change needed to detect
What is the Signal Detection theory?
Theory regarding how stimuli are detected under different conditions
What is a True Positive?
Stimulus present, responds yes
What is a False Negative?
Stimulus present, responds no
What is a False Positive?
Stimulus absent, responds yes
What is a True Negative?
Stimulus absent, responds no
What is synesthesia?
Hearing sounds when one sees colors or tasting colors
What is sensory cross-modality?
Interactions between two or more different sensory modalities
What is selective attention?
Allows us to choose which sensory inputs to focus on and which to “turn down”
What is cocktail party effect?
The other “channels” are still being processed at some level
What is inattention blindness?
Miss things that are right in front of your eyes
What is change blindness?
When a change in a visual stimulus is introduced and the observer does not notice it
What is brightness?
Amount of light reflected back to the eye
What is hue?
The color
What is saturation?
Perceived purity of color
What is additive?
Mixing lights produces white
What is subtractive?
Mixing pigments produces black
What is the sclera?
The white portion of the eye
What is the iris?
The colored portion and controls how much lights enters the eye
What is the pupil?
The hole where light enters the eye
What is the cornea?
Transparent cells that focuses light on the back of the eye
What is the lens?
Changes curvature to retract light onto back of eye
What is the retina?
Thin membrane at the back of the eye
What is the fovea?
Responsible for acuity
What are rods?
Provides side vision and the ability to see objects in dim light
What are cones?
Provide sharp central vision and color vision
What is myopia?
Nearsightedness; Light is focused in front of the retina
What is hyperopia?
Farsightedness; Light is focused behind the retina
What is trichromatic theory?
Color vision is based on our sensitivity to three primary colors: blue, green, red
What is opponent process theory?
Color vision as a function of complementary, opposing colors:
Red vs. green or blue vs. yellow
What is motion blindness?
Inability to perceive seamless motion
What is visual agnosia?
Object recognition deficit; damage to higher visual cortical areas
What is blindsight?
EDIT LATER
What is sound?
Vibration traveling through a medium (usually air)
What is pitch?
Wave frequency (Hz)
What is loudness?
Amplitude of the sound waves (dB)
What is timbre?
Complexity of sound
What is the outer ear?
Pinna (the part we see, skin and cartilage flap) and ear canal. Together they tunnel sound waves to the eardrum
What is the middle ear?
The ossicles (hammer, anvil, stirrup) vibrate and transmit sound to the inner ear
What is the inner ear?
The cochlea converts vibration into neural activity.
What is place theory?
Specific location along the basilar membrane matches a specific tone and pitch. Accounts for high tones
What is frequency theory?
The rate neurons fire action potentials reproduces the pitch. Accounts for low tones
What is conductive deafness?
Failure of eardrum or ossicles of inner ear
What is nerve deafness?
Damage to auditory nerve
What is nerve-induced hearing loss?
Damage to hair cells due to repeated loud noise
What is olfaction
Smell
What is gustation
Taste
What are odors?
Airborne chemicals that interact w/ lining in our nasal passages
What is the somatosensory system?
Responds to stimuli applied to
What is proprioception?
Kinesthetic sense; helps us keep track of where we are and move efficiently
What is vestibular sense?
Equilibrium sense; enables us to sense and maintain our balance as we move about
What are perceptual sets?
Occur when our expectations influence our perceptions
What is perceptual constancy?
Allows us to perceive stimuli consistently across conditions
What is Gestalt principles?
Rules that govern how we perceive objects as wholes within their overall context
What is Law of proximity?
Elements that are close together tend to be perceived as a unified group
What is Law of similarity?
Elements that are similar to each other tend to be perceived as a unified group
What is Law of closure?
Even when an abject isn’t closed, our mind interprets it as whole
What is Law of continuity?
When our brain perceives that a line continues even when we can’t see part of it
What is Law of symmetry?
Tendency to group things together
What is Law of figure-ground?
Simplifying a scene into a figure and background
What is moon illusion?
Moon to appear larger near the horizon that it does higher up in the sky
What is Muller-Lyer illusion?
When you put outward lines on an arrow, looks longer that inward lines
What is Horizontal-vertical illusion?
Tend to see vertical lines longer that horizontal lines
What is Ebbinghous-Titchner illusion?
Stimulus surrounded by smaller/larger stimuli appears larger/smaller
What is face recognition?
Recognizing a face even when they are distorted
What is visual perception?
To determine motion, the brain compares visual frames of what is to what was
What is Phi phenomenon?
Our brain interprets it as moving when it isn’t, each dot is just disappearing in order
What is subliminal information processing?
Process many sensory inputs unconsciously and many of our actions occur with little to no forethought or deliberation
What is subliminal perception?
The processing of sensory information that occurs below the level of conscious awareness
