exam 2

Question 1

Sensation

Answer 1

is the detection of physical stimuli and transmission of that information to the brain (ex. light, sound, molecules of food, temperature, etc)

Question 2

Perception

Answer 2

is the brains further processing, organization, and interpretation of the sensory information.

Question 3

What is the difference between sensation and perception?

Answer 3

Sensation is only detection while perception makes sense of the the detection. (ex. if you get splashed in the face w/ rootbeer, sensation tells you the smell and taste while perception identifies it with rootbeer.)

Question 4

Bottom-up processing

Answer 4

Based on the physical features of the stimulus. Each piece of sensory input builds up to perception. Getting splashed in the face and then recognizing that it is root beer.

Question 5

Top-down processing

Answer 5

Using knowledge, expectations, and past experiences to shape interpretation of sensory input. If we see an apple shaped object that is blue, we know it’s not a real apple because they aren’t usually blue.

Question 6

Transduction

Answer 6

Translation of stimuli. Stimuli is translated into signals that the brain can understand through the use of sensory receptors.

Question 7

Sensory receptors

Answer 7

Specialized cells in sense organs that pass physical stimulation like touch and vision or chemical stimulation like taste and smell to the brain via neural impulses.

Question 8

What is different about transducing smell than the rest of the senses?

Answer 8

Smell bypasses the thalamus and goes straight to the cortex.

Question 9

Stimuli, receptors, and pathway to brain for vision?

Answer 9

Stimuli: Light waves
Receptors: Rods and cones
Pathway to brain: Optic nerve

Question 10

Stimuli, receptors, and pathway to brain for hearing?

Answer 10

Stimuli: Sound waves
Receptors: Hair cells in cochlea in inner ear
Pathway to brain: Auditory nerve

Question 11

Stimuli, receptors, and pathway to brain for taste?

Answer 11

Stimuli: Molecules from dissolved food or drink.
Receptors: Cells in taste buds
Pathway to brain: Portions of facial, glossopharyngeal, and vagus nerves

Question 12

Stimuli, receptors, and pathway to brain for smell?

Answer 12

Stimuli: Molecules from dissolved fluid on membranes of the nose
Receptors: Sensitive ends of olfactory mucous neurons in the mucous membranes
Pathway to brain: Olfactory nerve

Question 13

Stimuli, receptors, and pathway to brain for touch?

Answer 13

Stimuli: Pressure on skin
Receptors: Sensitive ends of touch neurons in skin
Pathway to brain: cranial nerves for above the neck and spinal nerves for touch elsewhere.

Question 14

How do neurons respond to qualitative information?

Answer 14

By firing different combinations of neurons.

Question 15

How do neurons respond to quantitative information?

Answer 15

By firing neurons at different rates.

Question 16

Absolute threshold

Answer 16

Minimum intensity of stimulation that must occur before you experience a sensation. (Stimulus intensity you would detect 50% of the time)

Question 17

Difference threshold

Answer 17

Smallest difference between two stimuli that you can notice (ex. friend is watching a TV show and you are reading and a commercial comes on and it is louder, you look up because you can tell that something is different, the difference threshold is the minimum difference in volume that you notice)

Question 18

Signal detection theory

Answer 18

Detecting a stimulus is not an objective process. It is subjective to two components: 1) sensitivity to the stimulus in the presence of noise and 2) the criteria used to make the judgement from ambiguous information (ex. a doctor may be influenced to see a faint line on an exam based on the knowledge they know about the patient or based on the level of consequences)

Question 19

Response bias

Answer 19

a participants tendency to report or not report detecting a signal if it is ambiguous.

Question 20

Sensory adaptation

Answer 20

a decrease in sensitivity due to a level of constant stimulation (ex. you don’t notice the sound of the air conditioner in your house because you hear it all the time, but your friend does hear it)

Question 21

Rods

Answer 21

Low levels of light, responsible for night vision. No color, little fine detail.

Question 22

Cones

Answer 22

Responsible for vision under brighter conditions, color and details.

Question 23

Fovea

Answer 23

Where the cones are packed in the center of the retina.

Question 24

Trichromatic theory

Answer 24

color vision results from activity in three types of cones that are sensitive to different wavelengths.

Question 25

Endogenous attention

Answer 25

voluntary, top down, guided by our goals and expectations.

Question 26

Exogenous attention

Answer 26

reflexive, bottom up, driven by sensory stimuli that involuntarily capture our attention

Question 27

Overt attention

Answer 27

orienting the body and sense organs toward a stimulus (someone will be able to tell you are paying attention)

Question 28

covert attention

Answer 28

guiding without any external clues that you are doing so (someone will NOT be able to tell that you are paying attention)

Question 29

Bottlenecks

Answer 29

only a limited amount of information can be perceived at a given time

Question 30

early selection

Answer 30

idea that stimulus can be selected for further processing at early processing stages

Question 31

late selection

Answer 31

all information reaches higher processing stages

Question 32

neglect

Answer 32

complete lack of attention to one side of the body and visual field. Patients have no awareness of neglect. Only eat from one side of plate, only brush one side of hair, etc…

Question 33

Gestalt principles

Answer 33

Proximity: the closer objects are to each other, the more likely we are to group them together.
Similarity: We tend to group together figures according to how closely they resemble each other.
Good continuation: We tend to group together contours that are smooth and continuous rather than sharp and abrupt.
Closure: We tend to complete figures that have gaps.
Common fate: We tend to see things that move together as part of a common group.

Question 34

Binocular depth cues

Answer 34

available from both eyes together and are present when viewing the three dimensional world.

Question 35

Monocular depth cues

Answer 35

from each eye alone and provide organizational information that can be used to infer depth.

Question 36

motion depth cues

Answer 36

emerge when we move through space and depend on relative changes to visual input with motion.

Question 37

Binocular disparity

Answer 37

cue caused by the distance between humans’ two eyes. The brain has access to two different overlapping retinal images. Only good for close objects.

Question 38

Stereoscopic vision

Answer 38

ability to determine objects depth based on that objects projections to each eye.

Question 39

Convergence

Answer 39

the way the eye muscle turns the eyes inward when we view nearby objects.

Question 40

primary auditory cortex

Answer 40

temporal lobe

Question 41

primary somatosensory cortex

Answer 41

parietal

Question 42

primary visual cortex

Answer 42

occipital

Question 43

ventral pathway

Answer 43

WHAT involved in object recognition

Question 44

dorsal pathway

Answer 44

WHERE involved in spatial, attention, and action related processes.