Chapter 5 part 1 Flashcards
What is sensation?
the detection of physical energy by sense organs (raw sensory inputs)
what is perception?
brain’s interpretation of raw sensory inputs, influenced by the context.
what is transduction?
when the nervous system converts external stimulus into electric signals in neurons
what are sense receptors?
specialized cell transduces specific stimulus
what is synesthesia?
the experience of cross modal sensations (tasting colour)
what is grapheme colour?
seeing a 6 as always red
seeing a 5 as always blue
what is lexical taste?
words have assoc. tastes
Cross modal cortical processing
producing different perceptions than presented by either modality
- relates to the McGurk Effect
What is the McGurk Effect?
integration of audio and visual info to process spoken language.
hearing “ba”, see” “ga”, perceive “da”
the binding problem
- wondering how information is binded
hypotheses to the binding problem
rapid coordinated activity across multiple cortical association areas
what is psychophysics?
- how we perceive basic stimuli based on physical characteristics
- physiology provides sensations, observer provides perceptions
what is the absolute threshold?
-the lowest level of a stimulus we can detect 50% of the time when no other like stimuli are present
how are threshold and sensitivity connected?
the lower the threshold, the greater the sensitivity
signal detection theory
- happens when the absolute treshold is not fixed
- e.g high background noise, we need to increase signal
in the signal detection theory, what is meant by decision criteria?
a standard of how certain we are of a stimulus before we say we can detect it
what affects “decision critera??
depending on mood, expectancy, fatigue
response biases
tendency to make one type of guess over another when in doubt of strength of signal (present or unpresent)
Case study of response biases
Green and Swets
- navy radar example
JND
- Just noticeable difference (JND)
- the smallest change in the intensity that we can detect.
What is Weber’s Law? (relates to JND)
constant proportional relationship between the JND and the original stimulus intensity.
the stronger the stimulus, the bigger the change needed for change
e.g flast light on a sunny day vs. at night
subliminal perception
the processing of sensory information that occurs below conscious awareness (limen)
- the stimulus is so little, it’s lower than the absolute threshold
examples of subliminal triggers when making extraordinary claims
- using emotional words (using words like anger)
- using morality (using religious words)
- confidence in ideas (using angry profs)
sensory adaptation
activation is the greatest at the start of a stimulus; followed by a decline in strength
- what’s happening is the sensory receptor is adapting to the stimulus
