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PSYC 104 > Chapter 4: Sensation and Perception > Flashcards

Chapter 4: Sensation and Perception Flashcards

1
Q

What is the difference between sensation and perception?

A

Sensation is the physical detection of something by the organs, whereas perception is the brain’s interpretation of these raw sensory inputs.

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2
Q

What is transduction?

A

The process where the nervous system converts external stimulus into electrical signals within the neurons.

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3
Q

What is a sense receptor and what is their function?

A

A specialized cell that transduces a specific stimulus.

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4
Q

What is sensory adaptation?

A

Where activation of our senses is heightened when it is first observed and later declines in strength.

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5
Q

What is psychophysics?

A

The study of how we perceive sensory stimuli based on their physical characteristics.

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6
Q

What is an absolute threshold?

A

The lowest level of a stimulus the brain can detect 50% of the time.

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7
Q

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

A

The smallest change of intensity of a stimulus that we can detect.

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8
Q

What is Weber’s law?

A

There is a constant proportional relationship between the JND and the original stimulus intensity.

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9
Q

What is the signal detection theory?

A

A theory that describes how we detect stimuli under uncertain conditions.

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10
Q

What are phosphenes?

A

Vivid sensations of light caused by pressure on your eye’s receptor cells.

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11
Q

What is synesthesia?

A

A condition in which people experience cross-modal sensations.

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12
Q

What is selective attention?

A

The process of isolating one sense and ignoring or minimizing the others.

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13
Q

What is the cocktail party effect?

A

Our ability to pick out an important message in a conversation that doesn’t involve us.

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14
Q

What is inattentional blindness?

A

Failure to detect stimuli that are in plain sight when our attention is elsewhere.

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15
Q

What is change blindness?

A

Failure to detect obvious changes in one’s environment.

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16
Q

What are the sclera, iris, and pupil?

A

The sclera is the white of the eye; the iris is the coloured part of the eye; the pupil is the hole where light enters the eye.

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17
Q

When do pupils dilate?

A

When we’re trying to process complex information.

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18
Q

What is the cornea?

A

A curved and transparent layer over the iris and pupil.

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19
Q

What is the role of the eye’s lens?

A

Fine tuning visual images.

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20
Q

What is the process called accommodation?

A

Where the lenses change shape to focus light on the back of the eyes.

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21
Q

What is myopia?

A

Nearsightedness; the ability to see things close up.

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22
Q

What is hyperopia?

A

Farsightedness; the ability to see things far away.

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23
Q

What is presbyopia?

A

The loss of flexibility of the lens due to aging.

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24
Q

What is the retina?

A

Thin membrane at the back of the eye.

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25
Q

What is the fovea and it’s responsibility?

A

Central part of the retina responsible for sharpness of vision.

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26
Q

What are rods and what are they responsible for?

A

They are receptor cells in the retina that allow us to see in the dark.

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27
Q

What is dark adaptation?

A

The time in the dark before rods regain maximum light sensitivity.

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28
Q

What are cones and what are they responsible for?

A

Receptor cells in the retina that allow us to see in colour.

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29
Q

What is the optic nerve?

A

Nerve that travels from the retina to the brain that conveys visual information.

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30
Q

What is the optic chiasm?

A

The split where half the optic nerve travels to one part of the brain and the other half travels to a different area.

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31
Q

What is the blind spot?

A

A part of the visual field we can’t see because it is devoid of sensory receptors.

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32
Q

What is the trichromatic theory?

A

Proposes that we base our colour vision on three primary colours (red, blue, and green)

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33
Q

What is the opponent process theory?

A

Theory that we perceive in terms of three pairs of opponent colours: red/green, blue/yellow, or black/white.

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34
Q

What is visual agnosia?

A

A deficit in perceiving objects where an individual can see an object’s characteristics but cannot recognize or name it.

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35
Q

Who are more sensitive to higher pitch sounds?

A

Young people.

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36
Q

What is the general range of hearing in humans in Hz?

A

20 to 20,000 Hz.

37
Q

What is timbre?

A

The quality or complexity of a sound.

38
Q

What are the parts of the outer ear?

A

The pinna and ear canal.

39
Q

What is the main function of the outer ear?

A

To funnel sound into the eardrum.

40
Q

What are the three ossicles of the middle ear called?

A

The malleus, the incus, and the stapes.

41
Q

What is the function of the cochlea?

A

It converts vibration into neutral activity.

42
Q

What is the organ of Corti?

A

A tissue containing hair cells that are necessary for hearing.

43
Q

What is the basilar membrane and what does it do?

A

A membrane supporting the organ of Corti and the hair cells in the cochlea.

44
Q

What parts of the cochlea are most critical for hearing?

A

The organ of Corti and the basilar membrane.

45
Q

What do the semicircular canals in the inner ear do?

A
46
Q

What is the place theory?

A

A particular place along the basilar membrane matches a tone with a specific pitch.

47
Q

What is the frequency theory?

A

The rate at which the neurons fire action potentials reproduces the pitch.

48
Q

What is the volley theory?

A

Sets of neurons fire at their highest rate slightly out of sync with each other.

49
Q

What is conductive deafness?

A

Deafness due to the malfunction of the ear.

50
Q

What is nerve deafness?

A

Deafness due to the damage of the auditory nerve.

51
Q

What is olfaction?

A

Sense of smell.

52
Q

What is gustation?

A

Sense of taste.

53
Q

What are the five basic tastes?

A

Sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami.

54
Q

Where do odours travel after reaching the receptors in the nasal passage?

A

The message enters the brain, reaches the olfactory cortex, and parts of the limbic system.

55
Q

Where do tastes travel after being detected by the taste buds on the tongue?

A

The message enters the brain, reaches the gustatory cortex, somatosensory cortex, and parts of the limbic system.

56
Q

What are pheromones?

A

Odourless chemicals that serve as social signals to our species that alter sexual behaviour.

57
Q

Define somatosensory.

A

Our sense of touch, temperature, and pain.

58
Q

What is proprioception?

A

Our body position sense (also called kinesthetic sense).

59
Q

What is the vestibular sense?

A

Sense of equilibrium or balance.

60
Q

What are mechanoreceptors?

A

Specialized nerve endings located on the ends of sensory nerves in the skin.

61
Q

What is the gate control model?

A

A proposition that the stimulation we experience competes with and blocks the pain from consciousness.

62
Q

What is phantom pain?

A

A condition where amputees sense their missing limb in an uncomfortable way.

63
Q

What is pain insensitivity?

A

When an individual is completely unable to detect painful stimuli.

64
Q

What are the two kinds of proprioceptors?

A

Stretch receptors in our muscles and force detectors in our muscle tendons.

65
Q

Where does proprioceptive information enter and travel through the brain?

A

It enters the spinal cord, then upward through the brain stem and thalamus to reach the somatosensory and motor cortexes.

66
Q

What is parallel processing?

A

The ability to attend to many sense modalities at one time.

67
Q

What are the roles of the three semicircular canals in the inner ear?

A

They sense equilibrium and help maintain balance.

68
Q

What is bottom-up processing?

A

Processing in which a whole is constructed from parts.

69
Q

What is top-down processing?

A

Processing influenced by beliefs and expectancy.

70
Q

What is a perceptual set?

A

Set formed when expectations influence perceptions.

71
Q

What is perceptual constancy?

A

The process where we perceive stimuli consistently across various conditions.

72
Q

What is size constancy?

A

Our ability to perceive objects as the same size no matter how far away they are from us.

73
Q

What is colour constancy?

A

Our ability to perceive colour consistently across different levels of lighting.

74
Q

What is the definition of the Gestalt principles?

A

Rules regarding how we perceieve objects as wholes within their overall context.

75
Q

What are the six Gestalt principles?

A

Proximity, similarity, continuity, closure, symmetry, and figure-ground.

76
Q

What is prospagnosia?

A

Face blindness.

77
Q

What is the role of the fusiform gyrus in the temporal lobe?

A

Facial recognition.

78
Q

What is the phi phenomenon?

A

The illusory perception of movement produced by the successive flashing of images.

79
Q

What is motion blindness?

A

When an individual cannot seamlessly string still images processed by their brain into the perception of ongoing motion.

80
Q

What is depth perception?

A

The ability to see spatial relations in three dimensions.

81
Q

What are monocular depth cues?

A

When we can perceive three dimensions using only one eye.

82
Q

What are binocular depth cues?

A

When we can perceive three dimensions using both eyes.

83
Q

What are the six pictorial cues that help us perceive depth?

A

Relative size, texture gradient, interposition, linear perspective, height in plane, and light and shadow.

84
Q

What is motion parallax?

A

The ability to judge the distance of moving objects from their speed.

85
Q

What is binocular disparity?

A

How each eye sees things differently.

86
Q

What is binocular convergence?

A

Reflexively focusing on something nearby using the eye muscles.

87
Q

What is subliminal perception?

A

The processing of sensory information below the limen.

88
Q

What is the limen?

A

The level of conscious awareness.

89
Q

What is subliminal persuasion?

A

Subthreshold influences over our votes in elections, product choices, and life decisions.

PSYC 104 (8 decks)

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