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PSYC 100 > Chapter 4: Sensation and Perception > Flashcards

Chapter 4: Sensation and Perception Flashcards

1
Q

What is sensation?

A

The process by which our sensory organs receive stimulus energies from the environment and transduce them into the electrical energy of the nervous system.

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2
Q

What is transduction?

A

The transformation of sensory stimulus energy from the environment into neural impulses

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3
Q

What is perception?

A

The neural processing of electrical signals to form an internal mental representation inside your brain of what’s on the outside

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4
Q

What is psychophysics?

A

The study of the relationship between the physical characteristics of environmental stimuli and our mental experience of them.

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5
Q

What are absolute thresholds?

A

The minimum amount of stimulation necessary for someone to detect a stimulus half of the time.

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6
Q

What is signal detection theory?

A

An approach to measuring thresholds that takes into account both the intensity of the stimulus and psychological biases for a more accurate assessment.

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7
Q

What are hits, misses, false alarms, and correct rejections?

A

Hits - responding “yes” when a stimulus is present
Misses - Responding “no” when a stimulus is present
False alarms - responding “yes” when no stimulus is present
Correct rejections - responding “no” when no stimulus is present

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8
Q

What is the difference threshold or a just-noticeable difference (JND)?

A

The minimum difference required between two stimuli for an observer to detect a difference half of the time.

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9
Q

What is Weber’s law?

A

The observation that the likelihood of perceiving a stimulus change is proportional to the magnitude of the stimuli.
Can be expressed as the mathematical equation ΔI/I, where Δ = minimum change and I = physical intensity or magnitude of the stimulus.

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10
Q

What is adaptation?

A

The phenomenon whereby an individual stops noticing a stimulus that remains constant over time, resulting in enhanced detection of stimulus changes.

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11
Q

What is a wavelength?

A

The distance between any two consecutive crests or troughs of a wave. Determines our experience of colour.

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12
Q

What is a frequency?

A

The number of cycles per second of a wave.

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13
Q

What is amplitude?

A

The height of the crests of a wave. Perceived as brightness.

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14
Q

What is accommodation?

A

Adjustment of the lens’ thickness by specialized muscles in order to change the degree to which it bends light.

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15
Q

What are rods responsible for?

A

Photoreceptor cells that primarily support nighttime vision.

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16
Q

What are cones responsible for?

A

Photoreceptor cells that are responsible for high-resolution colour vision.

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17
Q

What is the fovea?

A

A small pit in the center of the retina that is densely packed with cones.

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18
Q

What is acuity?

A

The sharpness or specificity of perception.

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19
Q

What is the ratio of rods to cones?

A

20:1

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20
Q

What is the trichromatic theory?

A

A theory of colour perception stating that three types of cone cells, each most sensitive to a specific wavelength of light, work together to produce our perception of a multicoloured world.
Long wavelengths = red
Medium wavelengths = green
Short wavelengths = blue

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21
Q

What is dichromacy?

A

The condition of only having two types of cones (colour-blindness).

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22
Q

What is the Purkinje shift?

A

Blue-green wavelengths appear brighter than other colours at night.

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23
Q

What is Hering’s opponent-process theory?

A

A theory of colour perception stating that information from the cones is separated into three sets of opposing or opponent channels in the ganglion cell layer; black-white, red-green, and yellow-blue.

24
Q

What are feature detectors?

A

Specialized cells in the visual cortex that respond to basic features such as lines, edges, and angles.

25
What is the visual association cortex?
The region of the brain where objects are reconstructed from prior knowledge and information collected by the feature detectors.
26
What is prosopagnosia?
A visual disorder in which individuals are unable to recognize the identity of faces.
27
What is the phi phenomenon?
A visual illusion in which the flashing of separate images in rapid succession is perceived as fluid movement.
28
What is pitch?
The perceptual quality of sound that makes a flute sound high and a tuba low.
29
What does the middle ear contain?
The eardrum and ossicles.
29
What are ossicles?
Three tiny bones in the ear - the hammer, anvil, and stirrup - that act as levers to amplify incoming sound waves.
30
What does the inner ear contain?
The cochlea.
31
What is the cochlea?
A spiral structure in the inner ear where the basilar membrane, containing auditory sensory neurons, is located.
32
What is the basilar membrane?
A structure in the cochlea where the auditory cilia, or auditory sensory neurons, are located.
33
What is frequency theory?
A theory of pitch perception stating that the brain uses the frequency of auditory sensory neuron firing to indicate pitch.
34
What is place theory?
A theory of pitch perception stating that different pitches arise from stimulation at different times along the basilar membrane. High frequencies are felt at the beginning, and low frequencies are felt closer to the end.
35
What is the primary auditory cortex?
The region of the brain, located in the temporal lobe, where sound is processed.
36
What is tonotopic organization?
The arrangement of the auditory cortex such that nearby frequencies are processed near each other in the brain, resulting in a sound map. Higher frequencies are processed toward the back of the auditory cortex and lower frequencies are processed near the front.
37
What is the primary somatosensory cortex?
The region of the brain where the processing of touch sensations occur.
38
What is the somatosensory homunculus?
A depiction of how the body is represented by the brain, proportional to the amount of cortex devoted to each body part.
39
What is proprioception?
The sensory system responsible for awareness of body positions.
40
What is the vestibular system?
The sensory system primarily responsible for balance. Consists of fluid-filled semicircular canals in the inner ear that relay information about body and head movements to the brain to help maintain balance.
41
What is kinesthesis?
The senses responsible for monitoring the position and movement of the body, including proprioception and the vestibular system.
42
What is our interoceptive sense?
Our internal sense of self. Uses the insular lobe.
43
What is olfaction?
The sense of smell
44
What is the epithelium?
A mucous membrane in the nasal cavity that contains the olfactory receptor neurons.
45
What is the olfactory bulb?
A structure just above the nasal cavity where information is communicated to the primary olfactory cortex via the olfactory tract.
46
What are glomeruli?
A spherical cluster of neurons in the olfactory bulb.
47
What is the primary olfactory cortex?
The region of the brain, located in the anterior temporal lobe, where smell is processed.
48
What is Gestalt psychology?
A school of psychological thought that attempted to explain how various elements group together to form objects, arguing that perception is more than a simple piercing together of building blocks.
49
What are binocular cues?
Depth information gathered from the separation between an individual's two eyes.
50
What is binocular disparity?
The magnitude of difference between the images projected on an individual's two eyes.
51
What are monocular cues?
Depth information that can be gathered by only one eye.
52
What is size constancy?
The phenomenon whereby the brain adjusts its perception of distance in order to perceive an object's actual size as constant, taking into account retinal size.
53
What is colour constancy?
The phenomenon whereby the brain adjusts its perception of colour to hold it constant, taking into account changes in lighting conditions.
54
What is a perceptual set?
A predisposition that influences what we perceive based on recent experience or context.

PSYC 100 (11 decks)

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