Chapter 6

Question 1

What is Sensation

Answer 1

The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment

Question 2

What is perception?

Answer 2

The process by which our brain organizes and interprets sensory information, enabling us to recognize objects and events as meaningful

Question 3

What is perceptual contrast?

Answer 3

The ability to perceive things as different from each other

Question 4

What is perceptual adaptation?

Answer 4

The ability to adapt to a stimuli to notice other important things happening around you

Question 5

What is perceptual constancy?

Answer 5

Objects are perceived as unchanging, even as illumination and retinal images change

Question 6

What is the just-noticeable difference?

Answer 6

The Difference Threshold: minimum difference that one can detect between only two stimulus half the time

Question 7

What is the threshold of perception?

Answer 7

Absolute Threshold: minimum stimulus required for one to detect stimulus 50% of the time

Question 8

Describe parts of the eye.

Question 9

Describe parts of the ear.

Question 10

What are rods and cones?

Answer 10

Rods: retinal receptors that detect black, white, and grey; sensitive to movement; vital to peripheral vision
Cones: receptors in middle of retina; daylight or well lit conditions; detect fine detail and color

Question 11

What does a soundwave’s amplitude determine?

Answer 11

The perceived loudness

Question 12

What does a wavelength determine in vision?

Answer 12

The hue or color we perceive

Question 13

Compare Top-down processing to Bottom-up processing.

Answer 13

Top-down: higher level mental processes; construct perception through experience
Bottom-up: begins at entry level; information travels from sensory receptors to the brain

Question 14

What is transduction?

Answer 14

When sensory receptors convert stimuli into energy

Question 15

What are some monocular cues?

Answer 15

relative size, relative height, relative motion, linear perspective, and interposition

Question 16

What are some binocular cues?

Answer 16

convergence (inward angle of the eyes focusing on a nearby object) and retinal disparity (comparing two retinal images to judge an object’s distance)

Question 17

Define Signal Detection Theory

Answer 17

how we detect faint stimulus given background stimulus

Question 18

What is Weber’s Law?

Answer 18

for an average person to perceive a difference, 2 stimulus must differ by a constant minimum percentage not amount

Question 19

What is a perceptual set?

Answer 19

mental tendencies that affect what we hear, taste, feel, see; top-down process

Question 20

How does context affect perception?

Answer 20

preexisting schemas affect top-down processing of sensation interpretation

Question 21

What is parallel processing?

Answer 21

the brain’s ability to do many things at once through visual scenes divided in sub-dimensions

Question 22

Discuss Gestalt principles

Answer 22

principles used to organize sensation =s into meaningful wholes

Question 23

Discuss the Gate Control Theory

Answer 23

a mechanism, in the spinal cord, in which pain signals can be sent up to the brain to be processed to accentuate the possible perceived pain, or attenuate it at the spinal cord itself. The ‘gate’ is the mechanism where pain signals can be let through or restricted.

Question 24

What is sensory interaction?

Answer 24

the interaction of the senses to each other and how they influence each other