Chapter 4 Vocab

Question 1

sensation

Answer 1

Simple stimulation of a sense organ.

Question 2

perception

Answer 2

The organization, identification, and interpretation of a sensation in order to form a mental representation.

Question 3

psychophysics

Answer 3

Methods that measure the strength of a stimulus and the observer’s sensitivity to that stimulus.

Question 4

absolute threshold

Answer 4

The minimal intensity needed to just barely detect a stimulus.

Question 5

just noticeable difference (JND)

Answer 5

The minimal change in a stimulus that can just barely be detected.

Question 6

Weber’s law

Answer 6

The just noticeable difference of a stimulus is a constant proportion despite variations in intensity.

Question 7

signal detection theory

Answer 7

An observation that the response to a stimulus depends both on a person’s sensitivity to the stimulus in the presence of noise and on a person’s response criterion

Question 8

sensory adaptation

Answer 8

Sensitivity to prolonged stimulation tends to decline over time as an organism adapts to current conditions.

Question 9

retina

Answer 9

Light-sensitive tissue lining the back of the eyeball.

Question 10

accommodation (eye)

Answer 10

The process by which the eye maintains a clear image on the retina.

Question 11

cones

Answer 11

Photoreceptors that detect color, operate under normal daylight conditions, and allow us to focus on fine detail.

Question 12

rods

Answer 12

Photoreceptors that become active under low-light conditions for night vision.

Question 13

fovea

Answer 13

An area of the retina where vision is the clearest and there are no rods at all.

Question 14

blind spot

Answer 14

A location in the visual field that produces no sensation on the retina because the corresponding area of the retina contains neither rods nor cones and therefore has no mechanism to sense light.

Question 15

receptive field

Answer 15

The region of the sensory surface that, when stimulated, causes a change in the firing rate of that neuron.

Question 16

area V1

Answer 16

The part of the occipital lobe that contains the primary visual cortex.

Question 17

visual-form agnosia

Answer 17

The inability to recognize objects by sight.

Question 18

binding problem

Answer 18

A phenomenon that concerns how features are linked together so that we see unified objects in our visual world rather than free-floating or miscombined features.

Question 19

illusory conjunction

Answer 19

A perceptual mistake where features from multiple objects are incorrectly combined.

Question 20

feature integration theory

Answer 20

The idea that focused attention is not required to detect the individual features that comprise a stimulus but is required to bind those individual features together.

Question 21

perceptual constancy

Answer 21

A perceptual principle stating that even as aspects of sensory signals change, perception remains consistent.

Question 22

monocular depth cues

Answer 22

Aspects of a scene that yield information about depth when viewed with only one eye

Question 23

binocular disparity

Answer 23

The difference in the retinal images of the two eyes that provides information about depth.

Question 24

change blindness

Answer 24

A phenomenon that occurs when people fail to detect changes to the visual details of a scene.

Question 25

inattentional blindness

Answer 25

A failure to perceive objects that are not the focus of attention.

Question 26

apparent motion

Answer 26

The perception of movement as a result of alternating signals appearing in rapid succession in different locations.

Question 27

pitch

Answer 27

How high or low a sound is.

Question 28

loudness

Answer 28

A sound’s intensity.

Question 29

timbre

Answer 29

A listener’s experience of sound quality or resonance.

Question 30

cochlea

Answer 30

A fluid-filled tube that is the organ of auditory transduction.

Question 31

basilar membrane

Answer 31

A structure in the inner ear that undulates when vibrations from the ossicles reach the cochlear fluid.

Question 32

hair cells

Answer 32

Specialized auditory receptor neurons embedded in the basilar membrane.

Question 33

area A1

Answer 33

A portion of the temporal lobe that contains the primary auditory cortex.

Question 34

place code

Answer 34

The mechanism by which the cochlea encodes different frequencies at different locations along the basilar membrane

Question 35

temporal code

Answer 35

The mechanism by which the cochlea registers low frequencies via the firing rate of action potentials entering the auditory nerve.

Question 36

haptic perception

Answer 36

The active exploration of the environment by touching and grasping objects with our hands.

Question 37

referred pain

Answer 37

Feeling of pain when sensory information from internal and external areas converges on the same nerve cells in the spinal cord.

Question 38

gate-control theory

Answer 38

A theory of pain perception based on the idea that signals arriving from pain receptors in the body can be stopped, or gated, by interneurons in the spinal cord via feedback from two directions.

Question 39

vestibular system

Answer 39

The three fluid-filled semicircular canals and adjacent organs located next to the cochlea in each inner ear.

Question 40

olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs)

Answer 40

Receptor cells that initiate the sense of smell.

Question 41

olfactory bulb

Answer 41

A brain structure located above the nasal cavity beneath the frontal lobes.

Question 42

pheromones

Answer 42

Biochemical odorants emitted by other members of its species that can affect an animal’s behavior or physiology.

Question 43

taste buds

Answer 43

The organ of taste transduction.