Exam 2 Flashcards
The process of detecting a physical stimulus, such as light, sound, heat, or pressure
sensation
The process of integrating, organizing, and interpreting sensations
perception
The process by which a form of physical energy is converted into a coded neural signal that can be processed by the nervous system
transduction
Which path does visual information take on its way to the optic nerve?
photoreceptors, bipolar cells, ganglion cells
Lara believes that the size of the just noticeable difference varies depending on its relation to the strength of the original stimulus. Her views are consistent with:
Weber’s Law
The ability to see fine details is called:
visual acuity
When stepping backwards, Carmine feels a slight lump under his shoe and hears a high-pitched yowling noise. The process by which his brain determines that he has stepped on a cat’s tail would BEST be described as:
perception
The adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters is called the:
pupil
Morton is attending a dinner party with some friends. He notices as he sits at the dinner table that the chair is uncomfortable. However, after a few minutes he no longer notices the discomfort. This phenomenon is called _____.
sensory adaptation
As a result of the absence of _____ in the optic disk, we have a tiny hole, known as a blind spot, in our field of vision.
photoreceptors
Giulio’s bag of marbles is twice as heavy as Lynn’s. If it takes 5 extra marbles to make Lynn’s bag feel heavier, it will take 10 extra marbles to make Giulio’s bag feel heavier. This best illustrates:
Weber’s Law
Where are feature detectors located?
in the visual cortex
While strolling through the garden, Jamal suddenly notices the beautiful scent of roses. Jamal is using his _____ sense, and the process by which the odor is converted into neural signals that his brain understands is called _____.
olfactory, transduction
Bill wakes up early in the morning, and his room is fairly dark. He can see his shirt hanging on a hook. He knows it’s a red shirt because he hung it up there before bed, but in the dark it looks dark gray. Why is that?
In the dim light, the cones in your eyes are ineffectual.
During a hearing test, many sounds were presented at such a low level of intensity that Madeline could not detect them. These sounds were below Madeline’s _____.
absolute threshold
Jasvir suffers from myopia. Carmen suffers from hyperopia. Both disorders involve abnormally shaped eyeballs that do not focus incoming light on the retina. For Jasvir, the light from a distant object is focused _____. For Carmen, the light is focused _____.
in front of / behind
Two dimmer lights are being turned on, but one isn’t as strong as the other. The point at which Rudy can tell that one light is brighter than the other would be described as the _____.
just noticeable difference
A researcher subliminally presents a visual image to study participants, which increases the likelihood that they will later recognize the same briefly presented image. This best illustrates:
that information can be processed outside of one’s conscious awareness.
Michael opens his eyes in the morning to see the alarm clock on his dresser. At that point, his eyes are receiving light energy, which they change into neural messages for the brain. This conversion of one form of energy into another is called _____.
transduction
Jay is 48 years old. He recently had his sight restored after 45 years of blindness. He could associate people with a feature like their hair color but could not recognize their faces. This suggests that vision:
is partially based on experience.
When Tony was painting a landscape, he used many different colors. The technical term for the wavelengths of light that produce the perception of different colors in Tony’s painting is:
hue
According to Weber’s law, one would be MORE likely to detect the difference between:
a 1 oz. envelope and a 2 oz. envelope.
As a physical stimulus, sound is:
the vibration of air or some other medium.
When one experiences pain, the information is carried from the terminals of sensory neurons, which are known as:
free nerve endings.
Sound wave vibrations are transmitted by three tiny bones located in the:
middle ear.
Research has shown that when repeatedly exposed to a specialized class of odors, a person becomes more sensitive to and able to discriminate among these odors. There is evidence that this is due to increased activity in the _____ cortex.
olfactory
Loudness is measured in ______
decibels
Pitch is measured in _____
hertz
The outer ear includes the
pinna, the ear canal, and the eardrum
3 bones in the middle ear
the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup
cochlea
fluid-filled tube that’s coiled in a spiral
the sensory receptors for sound are called
hair cells
The type of deafness known as _____ deafness occurs if the tiny bones in the middle ear lose their ability to vibrate.
conduction
On the day of an important job interview, Jordan wakes up with a slight toothache. As the time for the stressful interview approaches, his anxiety increases and so does his perception of the pain from the tooth. When the interview is over, Jordan is elated because he feels it has gone well and, to his surprise, he feels hardly any pain from that tooth. Jordan’s experience is best explained by the theory of _____ plus his positive emotional state.
gate-control
An old friend calls Peter on the phone and, though he doesn’t have caller ID and hasn’t spoken to his friend in a long time, he recognizes her voice immediately. The ability to recognize her voice so quickly after so many years would BEST be described as:
the result of each human voice having a distinctive timbre.
Alex turns up the volume on the stereo in his car, which means that the sound’s _____ is _____.
amplitude, increasing
Shelly trips and rolls down a hill. When she stands up, the dizziness and disorientation she feels are a function of the parts of her ear called the:
semicircular canals and vestibular sacs.
Shelly trips and rolls down a hill. When she stands up, the dizziness and disorientation she feels are a function of the parts of her ear called the:
semicircular canals and vestibular sacs.
Gretta is 85 years old and having trouble with her hearing. She worked in a factory for many years at a time before there were regulations safeguarding noise levels. Besides normal aging, the MOST likely reason is:
damage to the hair cells.
With his eyes closed, Shaun can accurately touch his nose, lips, and ears with his right index finger. Shaun’s ability to do this is because of specialized sensory neurons called _____ that are involved in his kinesthetic sense.
proprioceptors
After playing in a heavy metal rock band for most of his young adult life, Edwin has suffered a significant hearing loss. Unfortunately for Edwin, a hearing aid will NOT help him. It is likely that he is suffering from:
nerve deafness.
This German word means a unified whole, form, or shape.
Gesalt
Research using the illusion known as _____ has enabled researchers to demonstrate that culture may shape perception.
Muller-Lyer
The binocular cue that relies on the degree to which muscles rotate the eyes to focus on an object is _____.
convergence
After hearing that Bryce had served a prison sentence, Janet began to perceive his genuinely friendly behavior as insincere and manipulative. This best illustrates the impact of:
a perceptual set
Beth reads about a car accident at a railroad crossing and wonders if it was caused by _____ (a monocular clue concerning parallel lines), which might have led the car’s driver to overestimate the distance of the train.
linear perspective
In a local psychology experiment, the research assistant asks participants to hold two pencils in front of them and touch the tips together. She then asks participants to do this with one eye closed. They find this difficult, which demonstrates the importance of _____ cues.
binocular
Oliver is installing a new printer and has to figure out which of the power cords behind the desk go with the old printer. According to Gestalt principles of perception, the law of _____ will help him solve this problem.
good continuation
Darrell has just arrived at the beach. The sand beneath his feet is rough and uneven, and he can see individual small stones, sea shells, and other debris. However, the texture of the sand toward the water appears smooth, even, and perfectly flat. He is experiencing the monocular distance cue of:
texture gradient
Georgianna is seated on a bus before it departs. She looks to her right, and the bus next to hers begins to move. As a result, she feels as though she is moving. This is an example of:
induced motion.
Peter is shopping in the mall when he notices an “exit” sign from which the “i” missing. He hardly notices the missing letter, as he immediately recognizes it as an exit sign and has no trouble reading it. A Gestalt psychologist would explain this ability to fill in gaps in an incomplete image as the _____.
law of closure
Sammy’s father throws him a ball. The image of the ball on Sammy’s retina grows larger and larger, yet Sammy doesn’t see the ball as growing. This illustrates the concept of _____.
size constancy
Jerry has agreed to participate in a friend’s psychology project. He is asked to judge the length of two equal lines. He concludes that the one with outward-pointing arrows is longer than the one with inward-pointing arrows. He has just experienced:
the Muller-Lyer Illusion
If Fred holds a letter he is reading very close to his nose, and Charlie holds the same letter at arm’s length when he reads it, Fred will experience _____ Charlie.
more convergence than
To reduce the experience of pain, Delores looks away and focuses on a picture on the wall as a nurse sticks a hypodermic needle into her arm. Delores is using the pain control technique of _____.
distraction
Information from the sensory receptors, the rods and cones, is first collected by specialized neurons, called ______
bipolar cells
In the retina, the specialized neurons that connect to the bipolar cells; the bundled axons of the ganglion cells form the optic nerve.
ganglion cells
The ______ pathway seems to be responsible for processing information about form, color, brightness, and depth
primary
The ______ pathway seems to be involved in processing information about the location of an object.
secondary
The point in the brain where the optic nerve fibers from each eye meet and partly cross over to the opposite side of the brain.
optic chiasm
three properties of color perception
hue, saturation, and brightness
Our perception of color is primarily determined by the ________ of light that an object reflects.
wavelength
different frequencies cause larger vibrations at different locations along the basilar membrane
place theory
basilar membrane vibrates at the same frequency as the sound wave
frequency theory
long wavelengths
red light
medium wavelengths
green/yellow light
short wavelengths
blue light
The theory that color vision is the product of opposing pairs of color receptors: red–green, blue–yellow, and black–white; when one member of a color pair is stimulated, the other member is inhibited.
opponent process theory
sweet, umani, salty, sour, bitter
5 primary tastes
The distinctive quality of a sound, determined by the complexity of the sound wave.
timbre
The technical name for the sense of balance, or equilibrium
vestibular sense
one sense induces experience in another sense
Synesthesia
face blindness- inability to recognize faces
Prosopagnosia
where an individual doesn’t attend to visual, auditory, or sensory stimuli presented from one side of the body
Sensory neglect
a delusion that other people one should recognize, such as family members, become impostors because they are no longer able to experience emotional warmth when they see those people
Capgras delusion
binocular disparity
Because we have two eyes that are slightly spaced apart on our faces, we get a slightly different view of the world from each
