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intro psych > chapter 4.1 > Flashcards

chapter 4.1 Flashcards

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1
Q

what is sensation?

A

the process of detecting external events with senes organs and turning those stimuli into neural signals

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2
Q

what is perception?

A

involves attending to, organizing and interpreting stimuli that we sense, and relaying that information to the brain

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3
Q

what is transduction?

A

when specialized receptors transform the physical energy of the outside world into neural impulses

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4
Q

sight is just lightwaves stimulating receptors in the eye, how does this raw information get relayed to the brain?

A

perception

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5
Q

how are raw sensations turned into information that the brain can process?

A

through transduction

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6
Q

what are the 2 stages in perception?

A

1) sensation
2) transduction

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7
Q

what are the 3 things needed to turn stimulus in to perception?

A

1) stimulus (light, sound, smell)
2) sensory receptors (eyes, ears, nose)
3) neural impulses

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8
Q

what are the 5 major senses / sensory signals?

A

vision
hearing
touch
taste
smell

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9
Q

what stimuli impact vision and what type of receptor pick up the stimuli?

A

stimuli: light waves
receptor: light sensitive strictures at the back of the eye

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10
Q

what stimuli impact hearing and what type of receptor pick up the stimuli?

A

stimuli: sound waves
receptor: hair cells that respond to pressure changes

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11
Q

what stimuli impact touch and what type of receptor pick up the stimuli?

A

stimuli: pressure, stretching, warming, cooling or piecing of the skin surface

receptor: different types of nerve ending that respond to pressure, temperature changes and pain

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12
Q

what stimuli impact taste and what type of receptor pick up the stimuli?

A

stimuli: chemicals on the tongue and in the mouth
receptor: cells lining the taste buds of the tongue

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13
Q

what stimuli impact smell and what type of receptor pick up the stimuli?

A

stimuli: chemicals contacting mucuslined membranes of the nose

receptor: nerve endings that respond selectively to different compounds

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14
Q

what mechanism do all of our senses use for transmitting information in the brain?

A

action potential

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15
Q

how does the brain differentiate all of the 5 different sensory signals?

A

it sends signals from different sensory organs to different parts of the brain, the senses get separated in the brain

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16
Q

what generates our experiences of our perceptions?

A

the different parts of our brain that processes the stimuli information

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17
Q

why do we hear?

A

because auditory information gets sent to our temporal lobes

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18
Q

why do we see?

A

because visual information get sent to the occipital lobes

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19
Q

who first proposed that “the different sense are spirited in the brain”?

A

German psychologist Johannes muller in 1826

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20
Q

what is the doctrine of specific nerve energies?

A

the idea that different sense are separated in the brain

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21
Q

what is important to separate different sensory signals and sense in the brain?

A

distinct pathways connecting sensory organs to the appropriate brain structure

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22
Q

what influences how we adapt to sensory stimuli in our everyday lives?

A

experience

EG. sensory receptors being most responsive upon initial response

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23
Q

what is an example of sensory receptors being most responsive upon initial response?

A

when you first walk out a building onto a sidewalk beside a busy street, the sound from traffic and the bright sunlight initially seem intense

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24
Q

what do changes in our sensory and perceptual worlds elicit?

A

an orienting response

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25
Q

what is an orienting response?

A

it allows us to quickly shift our attention to new or altered stimuli

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26
Q

what is problem with an orienting response?

A

since we are more adaptive to changes in sensory stimuli we progressively allocate less attention to stimuli that remain the same over time

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27
Q

what is sensory adaptation?

A

the reduction of activity in sensory receptors with repeated exposure to a stimulus

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28
Q

what is the benefit to sensory adaptation?

A

it allows us to adjust to our surroundings and shift6 focus to other events that may be important

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29
Q

what is the drawback of sensory adaptation?

A

we can get used to stimuli and not notice it as much and have it negatively impact us

EG. loud music damges eardrums

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30
Q

who was William gustav fetchner?

A

a physicist who helped develop psychophysics, due to having impaired vision he noticed it impacted his thoughts and actions

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31
Q

what is an absolute threshold?

A

the minimum amount of energy or quantity of stimulus required for it to be reliably detected at least 50% of the time it is presented

32
Q

what is an example of absolute threshold?

A

an experimented puts headphones on you and ask you to listen for spoken words, they manipulate the volume at which the words were presented so some could not be heard. the volume that you could detect 50% or more of the words would be your absolute threshold

33
Q

are absolute thresholds different across species?

A

yes, dogs can hear and smell a lot more than humans

34
Q

what is a difference threshold?

A

the smallest difference between stimuli that can be reliably detected at least 50% of the time

35
Q

what is an example of a difference threshold?

A

adding salt to your food, you are attempting to cross a difference threshold that your taste receptors can register

36
Q

when you cross the difference threshold and detect a change in the original threshold, what is that called?

A

a noticeable difference

37
Q

what impacts how much you need to change the original stimulus to cross the difference threshold?

A

how intense the original stimulus was, the more intense the more you need to add to cross the difference threshold

38
Q

what is Webers law?

A

the just noticeable difference between two stimulus changes as a proportion of those stimuli

39
Q

what is am example of webers law?

A

if you had a small cup of coffee and added a teaspoon of sugar you would notice, but if you had a venti and added a teaspoon of sugar you would not

40
Q

what is the limitations of stimulus threshold studies?

A

they are all determined by self-report and not all people are equally willing to say they sensed a way stimulus

41
Q

what is signal detection theory?

A

whether a stimulus is perceived depends on both the sensory experience and the judgment made by the subject

42
Q

what are the 2 processes required to examine the signal detection theory?

A

sensory process
decision process

43
Q

the experimenter presents either a faint stimulus or no stimulus at all, is this the sensory process or the decision process?

A

the sensory process

44
Q

if the subject is asked to report whether or not a stimulus was actually presented, is this the sensory process or the decision process?

A

decision process

45
Q

what are the 4 possible outcomes from signal detection theory?

A

hit: there was stimuli and they heard it

false alarm: they heard stimuli but there was none

miss: they didn’t hear stimuli and there was stimuli

correct rejection: they don’t hear stimuli and there is none

46
Q

what are 3 factors that may alter how much a stimuli a person can detect?

A

sensitivity of a persons sensory organs

level of psychological and autonomic nervous system arousal

how motivated a person is to pay attention to stimuli

47
Q

when are lost in the woods and your nervous system arousal level is much higher than if you were on a hike, is this due to an increase in the decision process or the sensory process?

A

the decision process

48
Q

what is subliminal perception?

A

perception below the threshold of conscious awareness

49
Q

true or false? the original reports about subliminal perception were based on a hoax?

A

true

50
Q

true or false? there is strong evidence suggesting that subliminal self-help stimuli can affect behaviour?

A

false

51
Q

true or false? because the stimuli are presented below the threshold of conscious awareness, a listener’s expectations will not influence the effect of subliminal messages?

A

false

52
Q

what is priming?

A

a technique in which previous exposure to a stimulus can influence that individuals later responses, wither to same stimulus or to one that is related to it

53
Q

what is an example of priming by subliminally presenting stimuli?

A

experimenters would present a word or an image for a fraction of a second before showing another image for longer (the mask) most of the time people don’t notice the word but brain imaging shows it can influence brain patterns

54
Q

can subliminal messaging create motivations?

A

no, it can only enhance motivations that previously existed

55
Q

what led the the development of the gestalt school of psychology?

A

max wertheimer noticed that pictures shown by a stroboscope for a millisecond consecutively they created a moving picture

56
Q

what is the ground principle in gestalt psychology?

A

the idea that objects or figures in our environment tend to stand out against a background

57
Q

what is an example of the ground principle?

A

the face or vase image or having a conversation at a party, whatever you are interested in becomes the figure if your not interest in the conversation the music become the figure and the convo is the background

58
Q

what are the 5 gestalt principles that influence perception?

A

ground principle
proximity principle
similarity principle
continuity principle
closure principle

59
Q

what is an example of the proximity principle?

A

things or people who are close together are viewed as a group due to their proximity

60
Q

what is an example of similarity principle?

A

people in uniform or dressed the same can be viewed as a group such as two different teams on a soccer field or police against protesters. they are dressed different so they are viewed and different groups

61
Q

what is an example of continuity principle?

A

objects that have lines that are continuous are viewed as one object but an object that has lines that abruptly stop is seen as 2 different ones

62
Q

what is the closure principle?

A

the idea that our mind has the tendency to dill haps to complete a whole object

63
Q

what is it important to note about gestalt concepts?

A

they are not isolated examples, rather when put together they demonstrate an incredibly important characteristic of perception: we create our own organized perceptions out of the different sensory inputs that we experience

64
Q

how did backwards messages play a role in perception?

A

there was lost of backwards messaging in songs by the Beatles, queen and led zeppelin. people thought these backwards messages could be perceived when they music was played forwards and influence peoples behaviours

65
Q

can science explain backward messages?

A

there was a study done and humans could detect the gender of the speaker, if 2 speakers were the same, what language but when tested if people could hear backwards messages it was proven they could not hear them and it was chance if they did

66
Q

what did all of these backwards music studies help show us?

A

our own perceptions of the world are influenced both by stimuli themselves and our own mindset

67
Q

what is top-down processing?

A

when our perceptions are influenced by our expectations or by our prior knowledge

68
Q

what is bottom up processing?

A

when we precise individual bits of sensory information and use them to construct a more complex perception

69
Q

what is a perceptual set?

A

a filter that influences what aspects of a scene we perceive to pay attention to

70
Q

what is decided attention?

A

paying attention to more than one stimulus or task at the same time

71
Q

does divided attention affect our performance?

A

yes

72
Q

what is selective attention?

A

focusing on one particular event or task

73
Q

what are 4 examples of selective attention?

A

focused studying
driving without distraction
attentively listing to music
watching a movie

74
Q

is selective attention beneficial?

A

yes but sometimes your perception of other parts of your environment starts to suffer and we fail to perceive obvious things

75
Q

what is inattentional blindness?

A

a failure to notice clearly visible events or objects because attention is directed elsewhere

76
Q

what is an example of inattention blindness?

A

people who witness an automobile accident or criminal behaviour often offer faulty or incomplete testimonies

or the monkey suit video

intro psych (38 decks)

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