Module 17

Question 1

sensation

Answer 1

sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from environment

Question 2

sensory receptors

Answer 2

sensory nerve endings that respond to stimuli

Question 3

perception

Answer 3

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

Question 4

prosopagnosia

Answer 4

face blindness

Question 5

phonaganosia

Answer 5

inability to recognize familiar voices

Question 6

color contrast

Answer 6

perception of a color of an object depends on surrounding colors via neural connections in retina and visual cortex

Question 7

color constancy

Answer 7

allowing perceived color of familiar object to stay constant even when light changes

Question 8

bottom-up processing

Answer 8

starts at sensory receptors and works up to higher levels of processing

Question 9

top-down processing

Answer 9

constructs perceptions by drawing on experience, expectations, prior knowledge, and context clues

Question 10

transduction

Answer 10

energy conversion into a form that brain can use

Question 11

path of sensual information to brain

Answer 11

reception, transduction, transmission

Question 12

psychophysics

Answer 12

studies the relationships between the physical energy we can detect and its effects on our psychological experiences

Question 13

absolute threshold

Answer 13

minimal stimulation necessary to detect a stimulus 50% of the time

Question 14

signal detection theory

Answer 14

predicts how/when we detect faint stimulus (signal) among background commotion (noise); assumes no absolute threshold and that detection partly depends on person’s psych state; seeks to understand why people react differently to a stimulus and why one person’s reactions vary as circumstances change

Question 15

subliminal

Answer 15

below one’s absolute threshold needed for conscious awareness; shows we can evaluate a stimulus even when not consciously aware of it; can test via priming

Question 16

difference threshold (jnd)

Answer 16

minimal difference a person can detect between any 2 stimuli 50% of the time; increases with stimulus size

Question 17

Weber’s Law

Answer 17

states that to be perceived as different, 2 stimuli must differ by a constant minimum % which varies depending the stimulus

Question 18

constant of 2 lights

Answer 18

8% difference

Question 19

constant of 2 objects (weight)

Answer 19

2% difference

Question 20

constant of 2 tones (frequency)

Answer 20

0.3% difference

Question 21

sensory adaptation

Answer 21

diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation; allows freedom to focus on informative changes in environment; explains tendency to check notifications, etc; shows we perceive world as it is useful for us to perceive it; extends to emotions and facial expressions

Question 22

perceptual set

Answer 22

mental disposition to perceive one thing and not the other; accounts for illusions; affected by context clues, expectations/schemas

Question 23

schemas effect on perception

Answer 23

related to perceptual sets; affect how we interpret ambiguous sensations via top-down processing; includes gender schemas