Lecture 4

Question 1

What is sensation?

Answer 1

process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive/represent stimulus energies from the environment

Question 2

What is perception?

Answer 2

process of organizing/interpreting sensory info, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events

Question 3

What causes prospagnosia?

Answer 3

damage to the fusiform face area

Question 4

What is parallel processing?

Answer 4

brain divides a visual scene into subdimensions– motion, form, depth, colour, and works on each aspect simultaneously

Question 5

What is transduction?

Answer 5

conversion of one form of energy to another

Question 6

What is bottom-up processing?

Answer 6

analysis that begins with sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information

Question 7

What is top-down processing?

Answer 7

info processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations

Question 8

What is absolute threshold?

Answer 8

lowest level of stimulation needed to reliably detect stimulus 50% of the time

Question 9

What is the difference threshold?

Answer 9

minimum stimulus DIFFERENCE a person can detect 50% of the time

Question 10

What is sensory adaptation?

Answer 10

reduction in sensitivity to a stimulus after constant exposure

Question 11

What is a perceptual set?

Answer 11

a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another

Question 12

How does motivation and emotion influence perception?

Answer 12

motivation gives us energy to work towards goal, can influence our perception towards the goal

• Emotions: our emotions influence our perception of temperature

Question 13

What is embodied cognition?

Answer 13

the influence of sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgements

Question 14

What is a wavelength? How does it affect frequency?

Answer 14

distance between successive peaks; shorter the wavelength the higher the frequency

Question 15

What determines the colour of light?

Answer 15

wavelength

Question 16

What is amplitude?

Answer 16

height from peak to trough

Question 17

What determines the brightness of colours?

Answer 17

amplitude

Question 18

Where are rods located? What are the strengths of rods?

Answer 18

outside the fovea

faint light, periphery, B&W

Question 19

Where are cones located? What kind of light are they sensitive to?

Answer 19

concentrated in fovea

Detail and colour

Question 20

What is the function of the cornea?

Answer 20

bends light waves so the image can be focused on the retina

Question 21

What is the blind spot?

Answer 21

the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, no receptor cells located there

Question 22

Why do birds of prey have a higher density of photoreceptors cells in the upper parts of their retinas?

Answer 22

so they have better vision when they are looking DOWN for prey

Question 23

What is the pathway of visual information processing?

Answer 23

scene– retinal processing– feature detection (edges, lines, angles)– parallel processing (colour, movement, depth, form)– recognition

Question 24

What is the gestalt principle?

Answer 24

people organize pieces of information into an organized whole

Question 25

How do gestalt psychologists suggest we organize sensations into perception?

Answer 25

• form perception
• depth perception
• perceptual constancy

Question 26

What are binocular cues?

Answer 26

a cue for depth perception that needs two eyes to work

Question 27

What is retinal disparity?

Answer 27

binocular cue for perceiving depth; the brain calculates the distance of something by comparing images from the two eyes

Question 28

What are monocular cues? what are some of them (6)

Answer 28

A depth cue available to either eye alone

1. light and shadow
2. relative size
3. relative motion
4. interposition
5. linear perspective
6. relative height