Exam 3 Psych 1100 Flashcards
Sensation
basic, primitive mental state corresponding to energies in environment; experience of world
Perception
mental state corresponding to properties of objects and events in environment; knowledge of world
Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies; the quality of sensation depends on…
which nerve fibers are stimulated- NOT the stimulus itself
What is light?
electromagnetic radiation
electromagnetic spectrum from shortest to longest wavelength (color)
short- blue, medium- green, long- red
the retina consists of
the rods and cones, bipolar cells ganglion cells, some others
What happens when light enters pupil
it then passes through eyeball to retina; through ganglia, bipolars and then eventually strikes receptors
optic nerve
bundle of axons of ganglion cells, leading out back of eye to brain (leaving blind spot)
Fovea
central depression in retina where cones are most densely packed- most acute vision
Rods
very sensitive; black/white light; night vision; mostly periphery (more rods than cones)
Cones
less sensitive, color; daytime vision; mostly in fovea (less than rods)
photoreceptors
light-sensitive neurons in the retina of the eye that produce action potential when stimulated by light
What are the two types of photoreception cells
rods and cones
what are the 3 types of cone cells
sensitive to different wavelengths of light; short-wavelength (sensitive to blue); medium wavelength (sensitive to green); long wavelength (sensitive to red)
The three types of cone cells send action potentials to…
opponent process cells
What are “opponent processes”
excitation and inhibition
What are the 3 types of opponent process cells in the visual system
black/white- excited- you see white; inhibited-you see black
red/green- excited- you see red; inhibited- you see green
blue/yellow- excited- you see blue; inhibited-you see yellow
trichromatic theory
all colors would be mixtures of blue, green, red based on the response of those cone types
but does not take into account afterimages or yellow
What is the current theory of how we see color?
opponent-process theory
- each responds to many wavelengths, but peak responses are at certain wavelengths
What happens to photoreceptor neurons when specific wavelengths hit them?
they change shape
Does the light itself have a color?
no
When cone cells get fatigued…
then the afterimage will be inhibited or excited
The cone cells do not respond to color, they respond to…
wavelength
black and white cells show…
how light or dark a color is
_____ of males do not have one cone type
5-8 percent
rod cells do not respond to red light, so they…
do not get fatigued by red light
Lateral Inhibition
when one neuron is firing more than neighboring neuron-> the excited neuron tries to inhibit the non-firing neuron (allows you to exaggerate a boundary like dark looking darker)
Where do we have the sharpest/ most detailed vision
fovea
a distal stimulus
something we see from farther away
proximal stimulus
retinal image
Retinal image
stimulation of receptors produces sensations of brightness and colors
poverty of the stimulus
proximal stimulus (retinal image) is inadequate for knowing about distal stimulus
Where does perception happen
brain
What happens to an image when it is converted to a proximal stimulus
image is upside down and reversed
3 factors of the poverty of the stimulus
inverted (upside down in retina); ambiguous (size and distance trade off); 2D (image flattened)
Empiricists think that perception…
is learned; based on experience
2 Empiricist ideas about perception
monocular depth cues and “unconscious inference”
monocular depth cues
linear perspective (convergence pt is far away), interposition (nearer objects will occlude farther objects), relative size (nearer objects cast larger retinal images)
linear perspective
convergence pt is far away (railroad)
interposition
nearer objects will occlude farther objects
relative size
nearer objects cast larger retinal images than farther objects (of same size)
unconscious inference
best guess at what DISTAL stimulus PROBABLY caused the PROXIMAL stimulus (the retinal image); perception is always in the direction of the best inference
infer distance of object
learned: points nearer to where lines converge are farther away; retinal image: object appears near to where lines converge
A Nativist view (Gestalt) of perception would say
that we have INNATE laws of organization
Principles of perception organization
grouping by proximity, grouping by similarity, good continuation, closure
What is Apparent Motion: phi-phenomenon
stimulus present in two locations within short time interval is seen as one MOVING stimulus; no moving stimulus though- no sensations of movement
The whole is ____ from the sum of the parts
different
Trace consolidation
what goes on during elaborative rehearsal- a memory trace changes from dynamic to structural pattern (STM -> LTM)
STM is
dynamic (pattern of activity among a group of cells)
LTM is
structural (pattern of connections within a group of cells)
Amnesia
interruption of consolidation process
retrograde amnesia
for events BEFORE trauma (interrupted STM from going to LTM) (retro=past)
anterograde amnesia
for events AFTER trauma ( cannot make new memories)
Patient HM had what type of amnesia
anterograde
Forgetting in STM is
displacement or decay
forgetting in LTM is
misplacement or retrieval failure
proactive interference
old info affects new info
retroactive interference
new info affects old
What kind of encoding would be most successful?
deeper processing leads to better memory; semantically
Episodic memory
episodes, events with time and places
Generic/ semantic memory
facts, concepts, meanings
explicit memory
reference to prior learning experience
implicit memory
no conscious awareness of remembering
Does depth of processing matter for explicit or implicit?
explicit (implicit memory lasts longer)
declarative
knowing that (mainly explicit)
procedural
knowing how (mainly implicit)
Korsakoff’s syndrome
caused by alcoholism and vitamin B deficiency
Patient HM had what removed
his hippocampus and amygdala (obv affected memory)
Brenda Milner
worked on HM’s case- made him trace a star backwards while in a mirror (HM has no memory of task through day but he still acquires the skill throughout the days)
What did HM lose?
the ability of make new long term memories through trace consolidation (anterograde amnesia)
Loftus and Palmar experiment
showed people slides of a car accident, asked how fast they thought they were going; some people were asked how fast when they hit each other and others were asked how fast when they smashed into each other; the word smash made that group more likely to remember the picture worse than it was
