exam 1 Flashcards
Absolute threshold
minimum intensity of stimulation that must occur before you experience sensation 50% of the time
what is sensation
the detection of environmental stimuli
What is the V2?
part of the extrastriate. establishes object boundaries and prefers whole objects.
What is lateral inhibition?
The brain’s ability to enhance contrast at object boundaries is due to this process, which reduces the activity of neighboring photoreceptor cells.
What is the doctrine of specific nerve energies?
This principle explains why electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve can result in the perception of sound, even if no external sound is present.
What is Top-down processing?
In this form of processing, assumptions are made about what we expect to see.
Olfaction, located on the bottom of the frontal lobe, is commonly referred to as this
smell
What is accommodation?
The processes where the lens focuses light onto the retina by changing its shape to adjust for near or far objects
What is interocular transfer?
This phenomenon refers to the ability of an adaptation experienced by one eye to affect the perception in the other eye.
What is Signal to Noise Ratio?
In a crowded room with multiple conversations happening, this concept determines how well you can detect a specific person’s voice amid the background noise.
increasing the visual angle
Walking toward an object would have this effect on its visual angle.
These receptors make up 100% of the Fovea.
cones
What part of the brain would be active when taking information from our eyes and turning it into what that person sees
Occipital Lobe
What is spatial frequency?
In a barcode, the number of black and white lines per inch can be described by this visual property, which affects how we perceive fine details.
What is good continuation?
When you see a series of smoothly curving lines that seem to flow together, this principle helps your brain perceive them as part of the same continuous shape.
In the human eye, this structural feature creates a blind spot where axons exit the eye, unlike the octopus
the inverted retina
Where is the first place that has all the information for both eyes?
the Striate Cortex
On a dimly lit street at night, this aspect of visual acuity is reduced, making it harder to distinguish objects from their background
contrast sensitivity
What are M ganglion cells?
These retinal cells are essential for motion perception and would cause significant impairment if they suddenly disappeared.
Retinal cells that respond best when a shadow fills their center receptive field
Off center retinal ganglion cells
Imagine you’re adjusting the volume on your phone, increasing it gradually until you can finally hear the sound. This process demonstrates which psychophysical method?
the method of adjustment
What is Perception?
the further processing of stimuli and how the brain interprets it as something meaningful
Leaves the eye as the “optic nerve.”
Retinal Ganglion Cells
ganglion fibers
ganglion axons
If a scientist was to keep turning up the volume until the observer can first detect it, what method is the scientist implementing here?
the Method of Limits
What is Cortical Magnification?
This concept explains why your brain allocates more processing power to areas in your central vision compared to the periphery, allowing you to see details more clearly in the center.
___ is the ability to detect a stimulus and, perhaps, to turn that detection into a private experience.
sensation
perception involves the ______ and ______ of sensory information to understand the environment.
organization and interpretation
Thresholds
Concerned with determining a person’s sensory limits
Chemicals wafting through the air that activate olfactory neurons in your nose is _______, whereas interpreting the response of the olfactory neurons as smelling like apple pie is _______.
sensation; perception
sensory neuroscience
Concerned with the biology of sensation and perception
Computational models
Concerned with creating a computer program that simulates perceptual processes
Scaling methods
Concerned with measuring differences between individual’s private experience of a sensation
Neuroimaging
Concerned with measuring brain activity while doing tasks
measuring method that would answer this question
What is the loudest, quietest, faintest, brightest stimuli we can sense?
thresholds
Signal detection theory
Concerned with understanding how people make extremely difficult perceptual decisions
measuring method that would answer this question
Which computational model will accurately describe how the basic abilities that every infant possesses at birth are shaped by experience in a particular language environment to predict the way you perceive speech sounds.
computational models
measuring method that would answer this question
Are we experiencing the same thing the same way? Is red for you the same as it is for me?
scaling method
measuring method that would answer this question
Should I call this growth cancerous or not?
signal detection theory
Who founded psychophysics?
Fechner
Dualism
is the idea that the mind has an existence separate from the body.
_______ is the science of defining quantitative relationships between physical and psychological events.
Psychophysics
Materialism
is the idea that physical matter is the only reality.
If an individual was just able to tell difference between a 100 and a 102-gram object, the JND would be
2 grams
measuring method that would answer this question
Which parts of the brain are active during this task?
neuroimaging
Stevens’ power law
says the magnitude of subjective sensation is proportional to the stimulus magnitude, raised to an exponent.
Panpsychism
is the idea that all matter has consciousness.
_____ is the smallest distance at which two different stimuli are just perceptible as separate.
The two-point touch threshold
measuring method that would answer this question
How does the pepper fool my nervous system into thinking that my tongue is on fire?
sensory neuroscience
The smallest detectable difference between two stimuli is called the
just noticeable difference
If an individual was just able to tell difference between a 100 and a 102-gram object, they would also be just able to discriminate 400 from ____ grams
408
Weber’s law
proposes that the JND is a constant fraction of the stimulus intensity.
Fechner’s law
proposes that the magnitude of the resulting sensation increases proportionally to the logarithm of the stimulus intensity.
Absolute threshold is the minimum amount of stimulation necessary for a person to detect a stimulus _______% of the time
50%
Method of Limits
requires the experimenter to vary a perceptible stimulus until it is no longer perceived, or an imperceptible stimulus until it is finally perceived
Method of Constant Stimuli
requires the random presentation of many stimuli, ranging from rarely to almost always perceivable, one at a time
Cross-Modality Matching
requires the participant to assign values to one perception based on the percieved strength of another sensation
Method of Adjustment
requires the observer to alter the strength of a stimulus until it matches some criterion.
Magnitude Estimation
requires the participant to assign values according to perceived magnitudes of the stimuli
In signal detection theory, the ______ is an internal threshold that is set by the observer and the _______ is a value that defines the ease with which an observer can tell the difference between the presence and absence of a stimulus, or the difference between stimulus 1 and stimulus 2.
criterion; sensitivity
If you had a stroke that damaged your parietal lobe, which sense would be most likely to be impaired?
Touch
A synapse is the junction between _______ that permits information transfer.
neurons
The chemical substance used in neuronal communication at synapses is known as
Neurotransmitter
is an imaging technology that uses the responses of atoms to strong magnetic fields to form images of structures, like the brain
MRI
Electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, can be described as …..
a stream of photons or a wave
When heat, sound, or light strikes a surface and is redirected (often back to it’s point of origin), it is being
reflected
When energy is altered as it passes through another medium, such as when light bends as it passes through water, it is being
refracted
aqueous humor
watery fluid between the cornea and iris
vitreous humor
gel-like fluid between the lens and retina
cornea
transparent window on the outer part of the eye that allows light into the eyeball
iris
colored part of the eye, consisting of a muscular diaphragm
retina
light-sensitive membrane in the back of the eye that has receptors
pupil
dark, circular opening at the center of the eye, where light enters the eye
lens
structure that becomes thicker or thinner to allow images to be focused onto the back of the eye
The eye changes focus using a process called __________________, during which the lens changes shape.
Accommodation
What transduces (changes; translates) visible light energy into neural energy?
photoreceptors
Photoreceptors specialized for daylight vision, fine acuity, and color are called
cones
The part of the photoreceptor that contains photopigment molecules is called the
outer segment
Which of the following refers to nearsightedness?
Myopia
Literally meaning “old sight,” this term refers to age-related loss of accommodation, which makes it difficult to focus on near objects.
Presbyopia
A photoreceptor will not fire if a stimulus does not activate its
receptive field.
The lateral pathway in the retina consists of…
horizontal cells and amacrine cells
P ganglion cells are different than M ganglion cells in that P ganglion cells
are more sensitive to color than M ganglion cells are
____ is the visual pigment found in rods.
Rhodopsin
There may be a third type of photoreceptor in the retina that helps regulate our sleep and wake cycles. What type of photopigment do these cells contain?
Melanopsin
Lateral inhibition is defined as the
antagonistic neural interaction between adjacent regions of the retina
_____ is a specialized retinal cell responsible for lateral inhibition
Horizontal cell
____ are retinal cells that synapse with photoreceptors, horizontal cells, and ganglion cells
Bipolar cell
On the fovea, single cones pass information to single ganglion cells via ________ cells.
midget bipolar
stimulus that would optimally activate an ON-center ganglion cell
A spot of light in the center of the receptive field
Path from Eye’s Blind Spot to V1 (steps 1-7)
- optic disk
- optic nerve
- optic chiasm
- optic tract
- lgn (in the thalamus)
- optic radiations
- striate cortex
The difference in illumination between a figure and its background is known as
contrast
If two objects appear near each other in the world, they will also be processed by cells near each other
on the retina, in the LGN, and in the striate cortex
Which neurons are found in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)?
Magnocellular, parvocellular, and koniocellular
Spatial frequency refers to the
number of cycles of a grating per unit of visual angle
Visual angle is a measure of the
size an object takes up on the retina
The difference in illumination between a figure and its background is known as
contrast
The spatial frequency of a stimulus is measured in
cycles per degree
____ is a mathematical procedure by which a signal can be separated into component sine waves at different frequencies. Combining these sine waves will reproduce the original signal.
Fourier analysis
The smallest spatial detail that can be resolved at 100% contrast is known as
acuity
the striate cortex is also known as
area V1, primary visual cortex, area 17
Cortical magnification is the _______ devoted to a specific region in the visual field
amount of cortical area
Which stimulus would a striate cortex neuron respond to most vigorously?
An oriented bar of light
A _______ cell is a neuron whose receptive field does not have clearly defined excitatory and inhibitory regions
complex
Which aspect of a visual stimulus do neurons in CO blobs process?
color
A _______ is a 1-mm block of striate cortex containing two sets of columns, each covering every possible orientation (0–180 degrees), with one set preferring input from the left eye and the other set preferring input from the right eye.
hypercolumn
The diminishing response of a sense organ to a sustained stimulus is referred to as
adaptation
No single neuron receives input from both eyes until the
primary visual cortex
If a movie projector is out of focus and the images on the screen are blurry, which spatial frequencies are missing?
High frequencies
What term describes a phase in the life span during which abnormal early experience can alter normal neuronal development?
Critical period
Which area is not part of the extrastriate cortex?
v1
Evidence indicates that structures in _______ cortex are especially important in end-stage object recognition processes
inferotemporal
The term “grandmother cell” refers to a neuron that
responds best to one specific object.
A study of cells in the IT cortex showed that they responded to highly specific stimuli. Which of the following best represents this kind of specificity, in support of the grandmother cell hypothesis?
familiar people, like celebrities.
____ is a failure to recognize objects visually in spite of the ability to see them
Agnosia
Prosopagnosia is a neuropsychological disorder in which the patient
cannot identify faces, but can recognize other types of objects.
What kind of process in the brain sends signals back downstream to earlier areas after initial processing?
Re-entrant
Which of the following is a loosely defined stage of visual processing that comes after basic features have been extracted from the image, and before object recognition and scene understanding?
Mid-level vision
Gestalt psychologists emphasize that
the perceptual whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Proximity
elements that are close to each other tend to be seen as grouped together
Good Continuation
elements arranged in a line or curve are perceived as continuous lines or patterns, even if interrupted
Similarity
elements that look alike tend to be seen as grouped together
Synchrony or Common Fate
elements that change at the same time or move together should be grouped together
Which formal mathematical approach to modeling perception takes into consideration both the current stimulus and our knowledge about the conditions of the world?
Bayesian approach
example of a superordinate-level object category term
vehicle
When one object covers up another object, that is known as
occlusion
The visual system tends to divide an object into parts by “cutting” it at _______ in its silhouette.
concavities (valleys)
If we use fMRI to measure your brain activity with your eyes open and then again with your eyes closed, and then identify the areas that differ between those two conditions, which brain imaging method are we using?
Subtraction
A major problem with template theories of object recognition is that
we cannot possibly store enough templates in memory to match every object we might encounter
Crystalline Lens
Focuses light onto the retina by
changing shape (called accommodation).
Optic Disk (Blind Spot):
Exit point for Retinal
Ganglion cell nerve axons
Fovea
The center of the retina where focused light forms an inverted image on cones.
Optic Nerve
Carries RGC fibers into the brain
