Chapter 6 Sensation and Perception

Question 1

What is the rough distinction between sensation and perception?

Answer 1

Sensation is the bottom-up process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimuli.
Perception is the top-down process by which your brain creates meaning by organizing and interpreting what your senses detect.

Question 2

What is the three steps to transduction?

Answer 2

Receiving sensory stimulation, transforming stimuli into neural impulses, then delivering the neural information to the brain.

Question 3

What is transduction?

Answer 3

Transduction is the process of converting one form of energy into another that our brain can use.

Question 4

What are absolute thresholds?

Answer 4

Absolute thresholds is the minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time.

Question 5

Signal detection theory

Answer 5

predicts how and when we will detect a faint stimulus amid background noise.

Question 6

Explain subliminal stimulation

Answer 6

Input below the absolute threshold for conscious awareness. A stimuli that are too weak and below the 50% mark

Question 7

Difference threshold

Answer 7

Also known as “just noticeable difference” - it’s the minimal difference a person can detect between any two stimuli half of the time.

Question 8

Weber’s Law

Answer 8

For an average person to perceive a difference, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (not constant amount)

Question 9

Why is it that after wearing shoes for a while, you cease to notice them (until questions like this draw your attention back at them)?

Answer 9

Sensory adaptation - the shoes provide constant stimulation, sensory adaptation only focuses on changing stimuli.

Question 10

Does perceptual set involve bottom-up processing or top-down processing? Why?

Answer 10

Perceptual set involves top-down processing because it draws in your experiences, assumptions, and expectations when reacting to stimuli.

Question 11

Sensation is to ________ as perceptions is to _________.
A) absolute threshold; difference threshold
B) bottom-up processing; top-down processing
C) interpretation; detection
D) grouping; priming

Answer 11

B - bottom-up processing; top-down processing

Question 12

The process by which we organize and interpret sensory information is called _________.

Answer 12

Perception which is top-down processing

Question 13

Subliminal stimuli are
A) too weak to be processed
B) a constant minimum percentage
C) strong enough to affect our behavior at least 75% of the time
D) below our absolute threshold for conscious awareness

Answer 13

D - below our absolute threshold for conscious awareness

Question 14

Another term for difference threshold is ______ ______ ______.

Answer 14

Just noticeable difference

Question 15

Weber's law states that for a difference to be perceived, two stimuli must differ by 
A) a fixed constant energy amount
B) a constant minimum percentage
C) a constantly changing amount
D) more than 7%

Answer 15

B- a constant minimum percentage

Question 16

Sensory adaptation helps us focus on

Answer 16

Important changes in the environment

Question 17

Our perceptual set influences what we perceive. This mental tendency reflects our
A) experiences, assumptions and expectations
B) sensory adaptation
C) priming ability
D) difference thresholds

Answer 17

A - experiences, assumptions, and expectations.

Question 18

Explain the retina, and what is it function.

Answer 18

The retina is the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing receptor cells called cones and rods that convert this light into neural impulses that organize and interpret these messages. The retina receives an upside-down image.

Question 19

Cones

Answer 19

Cones take in color light and fine detail and are concentrated near the fovea- the retina’s focal point.

Question 20

Rods

Answer 20

Rods take in black and white vision, for dim lighting and peripheral vision; several rods to bipolar rods.

Question 21

Optic nerve

Answer 21

signals from the bipolar cells activate the ganglion cells (whose axons converge to form the optic nerve)

Question 22

Young- Helmholtz theory

Answer 22

The retina’s red, green and blue cones respond in varying degrees to different color stimuli.

Question 23

Opponent process theory

Answer 23

Cones’ responses are then processed by retinal ganglion cells and the thalamus. Process color = pairs (red to green, yellow to blue)

Question 24

Gestalt

Answer 24

People tend to organize information into an organized whole (Gestalt is a German word meaning whole).

Question 25

Figure- ground

Answer 25

organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings.

Question 26

Grouping

Answer 26

Perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into meaningful groups

Question 27

Binocular cues

Answer 27

Two eyes improve perception depth

Question 28

Retinal disparity

Answer 28

binocular cue for perceiving depth

Question 29

Monocular cues

Answer 29

A depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, is available to either eye alone.

Question 30

The characteristic of light that determines the color we experience, such as blue or green, is ________.

Answer 30

Wave length

Question 31

The amplitude of a light wavelength determines our perception of _____.

Answer 31

Brightness

Question 32

The blind spot in your retina is located where?

Answer 32

The optic nerve leaves the eye.

Question 33

Cones are the eyes receptor cells that are especially sensitive to _____ light and are responsible for our ______ vision.

Answer 33

bright light, and color vision

Question 34

Two theories together account for color vision. The young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory shows that the eye contains ____, and the Hering’s theory accounts for the nervous systems having _____.
A) opposing retinal processes; three pairs of color receptors
B) opponents-processing cells; three types of color receptors
C) three pairs of color receptors; opposing retinal processes
D) three types of color receptors; opponent-process cells

Answer 34

D- three types of color receptors; opponent-process cells.

Question 35

The cells in the visual cortex that respond to certain line, edges, and angles are called _____ ______.

Answer 35

feature detectors

Question 36

The brains ability to process many aspects of an object or a problem simultaneously is called _____ _____.

Answer 36

parallel processing

Question 37

Our tendency to fill in the gaps and to perceive a pattern as continuous are two different examples of the organizing principle called \_\_\_\_\_\_.
A) interposition
B) depth perception
C) shape constancy
D) grouping

Answer 37

D - grouping

Question 38

In listening to a concert, you attend to the solo instrument and perceive the orchestra as accompaniment. This illustrates the organizing principle of _______.

Answer 38

Figure-ground

Question 39

The visual cliff experiments suggest that
A) infants have not yet developed depth perception
B) crawling infants and very young animals perceive depth.
C) we have no way of knowing whether infants can perceive depth
D) unlike any other species, humans are able to perceive depth in infancy.

Answer 39

B- crawling infants and very young animals perceive depth

Question 40

Depth perception underlines our ability to
A) group similar items in a gestalt
B) perceive objects as having a constant shape or form
C) judge distances
D) fill in the gaps of a figure

Answer 40

C - judge distances

Question 41

Two examples of ____ depth cues are interposition and linear perspective.

Answer 41

monocular depth cues

Question 42

Perceiving a tomato as a consistently red, despite of lighting shifts, is an example of _____

Answer 42

Perceptual consistency

Question 43

After surgery to restore vision, adults who had been blind from birth had difficulty
A) recognizing objects by touch
B) recognizing objects by sight
C) distinguishing figure from sound
D) distinguishing between bright and dim light

Answer 43

B - recognizing objects by sight

Question 44

In experiments, people who have worn glasses that turned their visual fields upside down. After a period of adjustments, they learned to function quite well. This ability is called ________.

Answer 44

perceptual adaptation