grave Flashcards
mental processes exist because they serve an evolutionarily purpose, they aid in survival and reproduction
Evolutionary
Brain applies what it knows and expects to perceive sensory information
Top down processing
with Weber, founder of psycho physics who studied the relations between physical changes and perceived changes in stimuli
Gustav Fechner
The influence of genetics and brain chemistry (physical and biological processes)
Biological
Demonstrated how specialized cells in the brain respond to visual information
David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel
The study of relationship between physical energy and psychological experiences
Psychophysics
Is the process by which sensory receptors receive information from the environment
Sensation
Is the process of converting physical energy into electrical signals
transduction
founder of psychophysics who investigated the just noticeable difference and proposed ___’ law
Ernst Weber
The process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensations, enabling you to recognize meaningful objects and events
perception
Build up from the smallest pieces of sensory information
Bottom up processing
colored muscle surrounding the pupil that regulates the size of the pupil opening
Iris
light sensitive surface in the back of the eye containing rods and cones
Retina
structure behind the pupil that changes shape to focus on near or far objects by adjusting how light hits the retina
Lens
small adjustable opening in the iris that is smaller in bright light and larger in darkness
Pupil
The point where you notice that a stimulus is present. The minimal stimulation required for a particular stimulus to be detected 50% of the time
Absolute threshold
transparent, curved layer in the front of the eye that bends incoming light rays
cornea
maintains that minimum threshold varies with fatigue, attention, expectations, motivation, emotional distress, and from one person to another
Signal detection theory
vision at higher light levels and capable of color vision
cones
The size of the JND is directly proportional to the strength of the original stimulus
Weber’s law
Simultaneously analyzing different elements of sensory information
Parallel processing
The point where you can detect the difference between stimuli
Just Noticeable Difference (JND)
The smallest change in stimulation that a person can detect 50% of the time
Difference threshold
images that remains visible after viewing an object. A negative after image reverse the colors in the original image
Afterimages
specialized nerve cells in the visual cortex respond to particular elements like shape, movement, edges, and angles
Feature detectors
The retina has receptors for three opposing pairs of colors: white-black, red-green, and yellow-blue
Opponent processing theory
The retina has three color receptors that are sensitive to red green and blue light
trichromatic theory
processes black, white and gray light, vision at lower light levels
Rods
The smell center of the brain, which receives and processes chemical information from the olfactory nerve
Olfactory bulb
Bundle of retinal ganglion axons that carries information from the eye to the thalamus
optic nerve
area in eye with no receptor cells
blind spot
The chemical sense of smell with receptors in a mucous membrane to the roof of the nasal cavity
olfaction
specialized light sensitive neurons in the retina that converts light into neural impulses; includes rods and cones
photoreceptors
body sense of equilibrium with hairlike receptors in semicircular canals and vestibular sac in the inner eye / it allows balance and body posture
vestibular sense
body sense that provides information about the position and movement of individual parts of your body with receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints
kinesthesis
pain is experienced only if the pain messages can pass through a gate in the spinal cord on their route to the brain
gate-control theory
the rate of the neural impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, enabling you to sense its pitch. Explains well how you hear low-pitched sounds
frequency theory
the position on the basilar membrane at which waves reach their peak depends on the frequency of a tone.
Accounts well for higher-pitched sounds
place theory
axons of neurons in the cochlea converge transmitting sound messages
auditory nerve
the process by which you determine the location of a sound
sound localization
includes the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs
inner ear
includes three tiny bones: the hammer, anvil, and stirrup
middle ear
the chemical sense of taste with receptor cells in the taste buds
gustation
snail shaped fluid filled tube in the inner ear with hair cells on the basilar membrane that transduce mechanical energy of vibrating molecules to the electrochemical energy of neural impulses / produces nerve impulses in response to sound vibrations
cochlea
includes the pinna, the auditory canal, and the eardrum
outer ear
the highness or lowness of a sound. The shorter the wavelength, the higher the frequency, the higher the pitch. The longer the wavelength, the lower the frequency, the lower the pitch
pitch
the # of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given amount of time (determine the pitch of a sound)
frequency
the process of transducing acoustic energy into perceivable sound (hearing)
audtion
the study of paranormal phenomena such as extrasensory perception and psychokinesis
parapsychology
focus on one stimulus will lead to between blind to other stimuli change blindness=miss changes)
inattentional blindness
ability to focus on a particular sound while partial filtering out other sounds
cocktail party effect
the figure is what is focused on and the ground is the blurry background which is likely ignored
figure ground pattern
focused awareness of only a limited aspect of all you are capable of experiencing
selective attention
we perceive the form of familiar obiects as constant even while our retinas receive changing images of them
shape and size constancies
occurs when we ourselves are the moving objects. Objects that are fixed in one place appear to move along with us
relative motion
an optical illusion consisting of two line segments, one with arrows pointing inward and one with arrows points outward. Though both lines are of equal length, the line with the
inward-pointing arrows is typically perceived to be longer
muller-lyer illusion
laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants
visual cliff
the difference between he images seen by each eye, which can be used to gauge distance
retinal disparity
clues about distance based on the image of one eye
monocular cues
clues about distance requiring two eyes
binocular clues
tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups
grouping
ability to differentiate an obiect from its background
figure-ground
the process of integrating and interpreting sensory data
perception
predisposition to perceive things in a certain way (notice certain aspects of an object/situation while ignoring other details
perceptual set
reduced sensitivity to a stimulus after constant exposure to it
sensory adaptation
the human visual system can process up to 10 to 12 images per second and still perceive the images as individual pictures. The
movement of a series of pictures at a rate that suggests motion is called stroboscopic movement
phi phenomenon
a subfield of psychology that suggests that the brain forms a perceptual whole that is greater than the sum of its parts
gestalt physcology
