Chapter 7 - Perception and Sensation Flashcards
3 Factors of Perception
What is in the sensory field, What was just in the sensory field, What has been experienced in the past.
Parrallel Processing
The ability to process multiple sensations at the same time.
Bottom-up Processing
Processing where a whole is constructed from its parts.
Top-Down Processing
Conceptually driven processing influenced by beliefs and prior learning, filling in the blanks
Perceptual Set
A set formed when expectations influence perceptions
Perceptual Constance
Aspects of a stimulus can change dramatically but we still perceive them as the same stimulus or related in a way
Problems Perceptual Constance and Sets
They do not provide an explanation for why they occur rather they simply do.
Selective Attention
The process of simplifying sensory overload by actively ignoring or disregarding certain stimuli. Assumed to be controlled by Reticular Activating System (RAS) and cortical regions.
Filter “Theory” of Attention
More of a model to describe the process in which only certain stimuli are allowed to pass through a sort of bottleneck shape and be accurately and fully perceived. Tested using Dichotic listening.
Innatentional Blindness
Inability to detect stimuli that are in plain sight when our attention is focused elsewhere like with dichotic listening. and the gorilla in the midst of the basketball players.
Change Blindness
Failure to detect changes in a visual stimuli.
Subliminal Messaging
Pseudo-scientific theory that believes that certain hidden messages can appeal to an individuals subconscious and then have those messages affect your behaviour.
Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
Perception of events outside of the known channels of sensation, AKA parapsychology has three main types.
ESP Types
Precognition - Predicting future events
Telepathy - Reading other people’s minds
Clairvoyance - Detecting the presence of objects that are hidden from view.
ESP psychologist
Rein Used Zener Cards
Ganzfeld technique
cutting off a receiver from normal sensory overload and have them receive a message from a sender in a separate location
Reasons for prevalence of ESP belief
Illusory correlation, underestimating frequency of coincidence
Visible light wavelength
400-700 nm
Hue
Colour of light
Brightness
Measure of quantity of light
White and Black
White is the amalgamation of all colours while black is the absence of colour and light altogether.
Variability in light
Additive and substracting colour mixing different from ink which function in the inverse manner.
Eyeball
Organ that is able to convert light in electrical stimuli
Schlera
Outer protective casing of the eyeaball
Pupil
mechanism that controls the amount of light in
Iris
Coloured portion of the eyeball
Nearsighted
Myopia focal point falls in front of eye
Cornea
Bends and refracts light onto focal point
Farsighted
Hyperpopia Focal point lands beyond retina
Lens
Bends and refracts light similar to cornea but is used to focus on objects within view
Retina
Captures light contains rods and cones
Rods
Mechanisms that work best in low levels of light, cannot perceive colour, gain maximum sensitivity after light deprivation for 30 minutes, called dark adaptation concentrated most on the outer parts of retina
Cones
Used to perceive high visual acuity and colour, concentrated very highly at the Fovea centralis
Fovea centralis
Point on the retina with a high concentration of cones and a low concentration of rods, in the middle of vision.
Blind spot
Intersection between the optic nerve and retina where no cones or rods reside.
Photopigments
protein within the cones and rods that react when absorbing light creating nerve impulses, sending them down the optic nerve
Optic chiasm
Area where the information from the left field of view and the right field of cross inside the brain, right field of view information goes to left hemisphere and left field of view info goes to right hemisphere
Area of the brain that interprets visual info
V1 area in the occipital lobe discovered by Hubel and Weisel using cats
Feature Detector Cells
Cells in the brain that recognize different arrangements of simple lines and edges
Later Levels of Perception
More complex shapes and movements can be observed.
Gestalt Psychology
They viewed the whole to be greater than the individual parts and believed that the whole should be studied rather than the components.
Gestalt Figures
Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, Kurt Koffka
Kunizsa Square
The image of four circles with the corners cut out forming the image of a square
Principles of Gestalt
Proximity, Similarity, Continuity, Closure, Symmetry, Figure-Ground Segregation
Proximity
Objects physically close together tend to be perceived together
Similarity
Similar objects will be seen as being grouped together or related
Continuity
Viewing continuous movement in abrupt changes aka good continuation
Closure
The tendency to view incomplete figures or forms as complete objects
Figure-Ground Segregation
Separation of the figure from its backdrop or background.
Trichomatic Theory
Idea that our vision is based on our sensitivity to the three primary colours, fits with later findings that cones are based off the three primary colours.
Opponent Process theory
We perceive colours in terms of three pairs of opponent colours
red and green
blue and yellow
black or white
specific cones are excited and inhibited by these colour pairs, ganglion cells in front of cones can lessen the effect of the cone if they perceive an opposing colour.
Depth Perception
Ability to judge distance and three dimensional relations
Monocular cues
Stimuli that enables us to judge depth using one eye
Binocular Cues
Stimuli that enables us to judge depth using both eyes.
Monocular Cues - list
Relative size, Texture Gradient, Interposition, Linear Perspective, Height in plane, Light and Shadow, Motion Parallax
Binocular Cues - List
Binocular disparity - The overlap between the left and the right field of views
Binocular Convergence - The degree to which your eyes turn inward to estimate distance.
Perceptual Deficiency
The inability to perceive a sense either due to an impairment of the sensory organ or an impairment to the portion of the brain that perceives it.
Motion blindness
Inability to detect motion as a product of images.
Visual Agnosia
A failure to recognize and associate objects with their class
Blindsight
The ability of blind people to be able to react to visual stimuli
Pinna
Visual part of the ear
Tympanic Membrane
Eardrum
Ossicles
bones past Tympanic Membrane
Ossicles Names
Malleus, Incus, Stapes
Semi-circular canals
small organs in the inner ear that deal with balance
Cochlea
Fluid-filled snail-shaped structure, contains sensory receptor cells
Temporal Theory
Pitch is determined by the activity level of the sensory neuron
Place theory
Different parts of the bassilar membrane are sensitive to different pitches which can be determined by the brain based off where they came from.
Monaural
Use of one ear to localize sound
Binaural
Use of two ears to localize sound, uses internaural level difference and internaural timing difference
Hearing loss
can be split into congenital deafness and conductive hearing loss and sensineural hearing loss
Congenital deafness
An impairment from birth that makes hearing impossible.
Conductive Hearing loss
Caused by age and environmental factors such as exposue to extreme loud sounds.
Sensorineural Hearing loss
The inability for the cochlea to transmit neural signals to the brain can be caused by Menieres disease.
Vertigo
Caused by increased inner pressure of the ear and creates a sense of spinning when staying still
Cochlear Implants
electronic devices that is used to bypass the cochlea entirely and replace it with technology.
Chemical Sense
Taste (Gustation) and Smell (Olfaction) rely on relaying information based off of certain chemicals with which they come into contact
Umami
fifth sense of taste
Taste Buds
Groups of taste receptor cells with hair like extensions.
Taste Perception
Taste nerve impulses are sent to the medulla, thalamus, limbic system and gustatory cortex, which is tucked between the frontal and temporal lobes.
Olfaction (Smell)
Olfactory receptors in the nose transmit neural impulses to the brain.
Olfactory receptors
located in the mucous membrane at the top of the nose, with small hair like protrusions to catch dissolved odor molecules. Sends signals to the olfactory Bulb.
Olfactory bulb
At the tip of the frontal lobe the portion of the brain that is responsible with relaying the signal from the olfactory receptors to the rest of the brain to be interpreted.
Pheromones
Chemical messages sent from individuals in a species to one another through the olfactory system.
Meissners Corpuscles
Receptors in the skin that respond to pressure and low frequency vibrations
Pacinian Corpuscles
Receptors in the skin that detect transient pressure and higher frequency vibrations
Merkels Disks
Receptors in the skin that respond to light pressure
Ruffini Corpuscles
Receptors in the skin that detect stretch or friction
Thermoreception
The ability to sense the temperature of things with the help of free sensory nerve endings near the surface of the skin
Nociception
The ability to sense pain and potential harm with help from free specialized nerve endings near the surface of the skin.
Inflammatory Pain
Pain that is caused by tissue damage.
Neuropathic Pain
Pain that is caused by damage to neurons in the central or peripheral nervous systems this pain ends up being exaggerated by the time it reaches the brain due to the strength of the stimulus on the initial neuron
Treatments for pain
There is no one clear treatment and varies heavily on many different factors
Congenital insensitivity to pain or congenital analgesia
the inability to feel pain, it is a rare disease. can still detect differences in pressure and temperature
Vestibular sense
The sense that allows us to maintain balance within our body governed by the semicircular canals in the inner ear.
Proprioception
Perception of the position of the body.
Kinesthesia
Perception of the body’s movement relative to the space which it occupies
Utricle
Organ in the inner ear that contributes to the vestibular sense
Saccule
Organ in the inner ear that contributes to vestibular sense
Parts of the Brain - Olfaction
Similar to the parts of the brain in gustation info is sent to the limbic system and to the primary olfactory cortex.
