Chapter 5- Sensation and Perception Flashcards
Bottom-up process by which physical sensory system receives and represents stimuli
Sensation
Top-down mental process of organizing and interpreting sensory input from experience and expectations
Perception
Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information
Bottom-up processing
Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations
Top-down processing
Changing one form of energy into another. in sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret
Transduction
The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time
Absolute threshold
Below our absolute threshold for conscious awareness
Subliminal
Activating, often unconsciously, associations in our mind, thus setting us up to perceive, remember, or respond to objects or events in certain ways
priming
The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. we experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference (or jnd)
Difference threshold
The principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount)
Weber’s law
Reduced sensitivity in response to constant stimulation
Sensory adaptation
A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another
Perceptual set
The distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next
Wavelength
The dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, and so forth
Hue
The amount of energy in a light wave or sound wave, which influences what we perceive as brightness or loudness. intensity is determined by the wave’s amplitude (height)
Intensity
The light- sensitive inner surface of the eye; contains the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information
Retina
Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don’t respond
Rods
Retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina. Cones are sensitive to detail and color
Cones
The nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain
Optic nerve
The point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye; this part of the retina is “blind” because it has no receptor cell
Blind spot
Nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as edges, lines, and angles
Feature detectors
The processing of many aspects of a problem or scene at the same time; the brain’s natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision
Parallel processing
Is perception based on context and experience?
Yes
This part of the brain is dedicated to the crucial task of face recognition
Fusiform Gyrus
Assignment of different teams of cells to simultaneously process many aspects of a scene or problem
Parallel processing
A person unable to perceive movement
Akinetopsia
Organizing pieces of information into an organized whole
Gestalt
Organization of one’s visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings
Figure-ground
Perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into meaningful groups
Grouping
This allows us to judge distance and represents one’s ability to see objects in 3 dimensions
Depth perception
Is it true that crawling, no matter when it beings, seems to increase an infant’s fear of heights?
True
Ears detect these brief pressure changes for us to “hear” from
Sound waves
Is it true that sound waves compress and expand air molecules?
Yes
A mix of 4 distinct skin senses: pressure, warmth, cold and pain
Sense of touch
Detection of chemicals and of 5 different flavors: sweet, sour, salt, bitter and Umami
Taste
A chemical sense that involves hundreds of different receptors and odors that can evoke strong memories. This can bypass the Thalamus
Smell
The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts. This system interacts with vision
Kinesthesis
The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance
Vestibular sense
