Chapter 6 Flashcards
bottom-up processing
sensory analysis that starts at the entry level
top-down processing
we construct perceptions drawing on both sensations coming bottom up to the brain and experiences/expectations (top down)
psychophysics
relationships between physical characteristics of stimuli and our psychological experience with them
absolute thresholds
awareness of a faint stimuli (minimum stimulation necessary to detect a particular light, sound, pressure, taste, odor
50% of the time
subliminal stimulation
below the threshold stimuli (we detect stimuli only some of the time)
increases with size of stimuli
weber’s law
for their difference to be perceptible, two stimuli must differ by a constant proportion (not a constant amount)
sensory adaptation
our diminishing sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus
(vision)
hue
dimension of color that is determined by wavelength of light
(vision)
intensity
amount of energy in a light wave (determined by amplitude)
(vision)
eye
- light enters through cornea with bends light to provide focus
- pupil is small adjustable opening surrounded by iris (colored muscle that adjusts light intake)
- then to retina (multilayered tissue on eyeball’s inner surface
- lens focuses rays’ curvature (accommodation)
(vision)
retina
rods (black, white, gray, dim light)
cones (near center of retina; fine detail and color)
(vision)
optic nerve
carries neural impulse from eye to brain
(vision)
blind spot
where optic nerve is leaving eye (no receptors here)
(vision)
fovea
central point in retina (lots of cones)
(vision)
feature detectors
nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of a stimulus (shape, angle, movement)
(vision)
parallel processing
doing many things at once
color, movement, form, depth
(vision)
young-helmholtz trichromatic (three-color) theory
theory that retina contains three different color receptors (red, blue, green)
(vision)
opponent-process theory
theory that opposing retinal processes enable color vision
hearing
sound waves (air pressure waves)
(hearing)
frequency
number of complete wavelengths that pass a point per time unit
(hearing)
pitch
a tone’s experienced highness or lowness (depends on frequency)
(hearing)
middle ear
transmits eardrum’s vibrations through a piston made of three small bones (hammer, anvil, stirrup)
(hearing)
cochlea
- snail-shaped tube; inner ear
- sound waves cause membrane to vibrate, jostling fluid, causing ripples in basilar membrane bending hair cells triggering impulses in adjacent nerve cells whose axons converge to form and auditory nerve
touch
- only pressure has identifiable receptors
- other skin sensations are variations of pressure, warmth, cold, pain
(touch)
kinesthesis
sense of the position and movement of your body parts
(touch)
vestibular sense
monitors head’s (and body’s) position and movement
inner ear
(touch)
pain
combine bottom-up sensations and top-down processes
(touch)
pain-biological influences
- nociceptors (sensory receptors that detect hurtful temperatures, pressure, or chemicals)
- gate-control theory (spinal cord contains neurological “gate” that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass to brain)
(touch)
pain-psychological influences
edit memories of pain (remember peak and ending)
(touch)
pain-social-cultural influences
perceive more pain when others experiencing pain
Taste
sweet (energy source) salty (Na needed by body) sour (potentially toxic acid) bitter (potentially poisonous) umami (proteins to grow and repair tissue)
(taste)
sensory interaction
the principle that one sense may influence another
perceptual organization
form perception, depth perception
form perception
- figure and ground (relationship continually reverses; always organize stimulus into a figure seen against ground)
- grouping (proximity, similarity, continuity, connectedness, closure)
depth perception
seeing objects in 3D, enabling us to estimate their distance
visual cliff, binocular cues, monocular cues
(depth perception)
binocular cues
judging distance of nearby objects
-retinal disparity (when comparing differences between two objects provides one important binocular cue to the relative distance of different objects)
(depth perception)
monocular cues
things at a distance, interposition and linear perspective; available to either eye alone
(relative height, relative size, interposition, linear perspective, light and shadow, relative motion)
perceptual constancy
ability to recognize that objects without being deceived by change in shape, size, brightness, color
(perceptual interpretation)
perceptual adaptation
makes the world seem normal again
(perceptual interpretation)
perceptual set
given by our experiences, assumptions, expectations greatly influences (top-down) what we perceive
cultural context
tree perceived by us vs someone from Africa maybe
extrasensory perception (ESP)
perception without sensory input
(ESP)
telepathy
mind-to-mind communication
(ESP)
clairvoyance
perception of remote events
(ESP)
prerecognition
perceiving future events
