Chapter 5: Sensation & Perception

Question 1

What is the difference between sensation and perception?

Answer 1

Sensation is the physical manner in which sensory receptors detect stimuli, and perception is the way the brain perceives and consciously experiences a stimulus

Question 2

What is the doctrine of specific nerve energies?

Answer 2

The principle that different sensory modalities exist because sensory organs stimulate different nerve pathways leading to different area of the brain, which is called anatomical code

Question 3

Alex consistently sees colours associated with certain words. What condition might Alex have?

Answer 3

Synesthesia

Question 4

What is functional coding?

Answer 4

It is used to figure out what our sensory receptors are sensing. Information about which cells are firing, as well as the amount and rate of cells firing forms a functional code

Question 5

A volunteer is put in a dark room with a black screen. The screen then changes to green. Researchers ask the volunteer to say when he notices the shade of green change. What are the researchers testing?

Answer 5

The volunteer’s difference threshold

Question 6

What is the absolute threshold?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

For a stimulus threshold, how is a “just noticeable difference” expressed?

Answer 7

A Weber fraction

Question 8

Signal detection theory is a psychophysical theory that divides the detection of a sensory signal into a _______ process and a _______ process.

Answer 8

sensory, decision

Question 9

True or false: there is a bear in the woods and Bob does not hear it. This is an example of a miss.

Answer 9

True

Question 10

True or false: there is not a bear in the woods but Bob hears one. This is an example of a correct rejection.

Answer 10

False. This is an example of a false alarm

Question 11

If there is a bear in the woods and Bob hears it, what is it an example of?

Answer 11

A hit

Question 12

True or false: there is not a bear in the woods and Bob does not hear one. This is an example of a correct rejection

Answer 12

True

Question 13

Not being conscious of the feeling of wearing clothes all the time is an example of what?

Answer 13

Sensory adaptation

Question 14

What is the difference between selective attention and inattentional blindness?

Answer 14

Selective attention selects focus on environmental sensations, whereas inattentional blindness is the failure to perceive something you are looking at because you are not attending to it

Question 15

Define hue, saturation,
and brightness

Answer 15

Hue: the colour (wavelength)
Saturation: the colourfulness
(width of wavelength)
Brightness: (height of waves)

Question 16

What regulates the amount of light let into the pupil of the eye?

Answer 16

The pupil and the iris, which is the round muscle that adjusts the pupil

Question 17

The white outer layer of the eye is called the _______.

Answer 17

sclera

Question 18

The lens of the eye…

Answer 18

focuses light onto the back of the eye.

Question 19

The retina is neural tissue at the back of the eye that detects light. It has 2 different types of photoreceptors. What are they?

Answer 19

Cones: detect light, near the center
Rods: detect movement, more outer

Question 20

Once photoreceptors detect light, how does it relay the signals to the brain?

Answer 20

Photoreceptors pass the signals through bipolar neurons, where they are collected by the ganglion cells, which relay the signal to the optic nerve

Question 21

What is the area in the retina lacking any rods or cones?

Answer 21

Optic disk

Question 22

This visual system detects specific aspects of the visual world, like line configurations, but most notably faces

Answer 22

Feature-detector cells. The group of cells above the cerebellum detect faces and cells near the occipital cortex respond stronger to body parts

Question 23

What is the trichromatic theory (AKA the Young-Helmholtz Theory)?

Answer 23

This theory states that colour vision is determined by 3 different cone types: short, medium, and long, which are sensitive to their corresponding wavelengths (L: red, M: green, S: blue)

Question 24

What is the opponent-process theory?

Answer 24

We perceive colours in terms of opposite ends of a spectrum. Cells in the retina and thalamus respond in opposite fashion to short and long wavelengths.
e.g. specific colour cones getting “tired” and leaving a negative afterimage

Question 25

______ ______ were among the first to study how people visually organize the world into meaningful units and patterns

Answer 25

Gestalt psychologists
Gestalt principles describe strategies used by the visual system to group sensory information into units

Question 26

This stream of signals extends from the visual cortex to the parietal lobe. It guides interaction with objects and is responsible for depth/motor perception

Answer 26

The dorsal stream (AKA “where/how” or “action” stream)

Question 27

Binocular depth cues are distance cues based on differing perspectives of eyes. What is convergence and retinal disparity?

Answer 27

Convergence: when eye muscles contract so both eyes focus on an object
Retinal disparity: difference in perspective of each eye

Question 28

Stereopsis is the sense of _____

Answer 28

depth

Question 29

What are monocular cues?

Answer 29

The way we sense depth for things beyond 50 ft. It depends only on one eye and uses things like interpositions, which is when an object is interposed between the viewer and a second object

Question 30

The ventral (“what”) stream is a visual pathway which extends from the visual cortex to the temporal lobe. What function does it serve?

Answer 30

The ventral stream is home to the fusiform face area which is responsible for object and face recognition

Question 31

What experiment showed that the fusiform face area was responsible visual expertise not specific to faces?

Answer 31

The greeble experiment

Question 32

What are perceptual consistencies?

Answer 32

The accurate perception of objects as stable or unchanged despite changes in sensory patterns. When sensory cues are misinterpreted, perceptual illusions can occur

Question 33

What measures loudness, pitch, and timbre?

Answer 33

Loudness: amplitude (dB)
Pitch: frequency (Hz)
Timbre: complexity

Question 34

What is the name for people who have an unusually large number of small, densely packed papillae on their tongue?

Answer 34

Supertasters. They have tastes much stronger than a normal person

Question 35

What is nociception?

Answer 35

The sense of pain signalled by nociceptors. Fast fibres detect sharp, immediate pain. Slow fibres detect chronic, dull pain

Question 36

What is the gate-control theory?

Answer 36

The theory that says the experience of pain impulses depend on whether pain impulses get past a neurological “gate” before getting to the brain

Question 37

People who feel pain from an appendage or organ that has been removed experience what is called ______ ______.

Answer 37

phantom pain
Treatment can involve the use of a mirror to trick the brain

Question 38

What is kinesthesis?

Answer 38

It tells us where our body parts are located and their orientations