Other Senses & Perceptual Processes Flashcards
The skin sensations: touch/pressure, warmth, cold, and pain
Somatosensation
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
Body sense that provides information about the position and movement of individual parts of your body with receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints
Kinesthesis
Has receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints
Kinesthesis
Five basic taste sensations
Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami (or glutamate)
Interaction of sensations of taste and odor with contributions by temperature, etc
Flavor
The chemical sense of taste with receptor cells in tastebuds on the tongue, roof of the mouth and in the throat
Gustation
The chemical sense of smell with receptors in a mucous membrane on the roof of the nasal cavity
Olfaction
Mucous membrane is also known as
Olfactory epithelium
Olfacton = no pathways to the
Thalamus
Set of processes by which you choose from among the various stimuli bombarding your senses at any instant, allowing some to be further processed by your senses and brain
Attention
Focused awareness of only a limited aspect of all you are capable of experiencing
Selective attention
Information processing that begins with sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory info to construct perceptions; is data-driven
Bottom-up processing
Is data driven
Bottom-up processing
Information processing guided by your preexisting knowledge or expectations to construct perceptions; is concept driven
Top-down processing
Is concept-driven
Top-down processing
Perceiving an object as unchanging even when the immediate sensation of the object changes
Perceptual constancy
Vision usually dominates where there is a conflict among senses
Visual capture
Gestalt psychologists
Recognized rhe importance of figure-ground in perception
“Whole is greater than the sum of its parts”
The ability to judge to distance of objects
Depth perception
Clues about distance based on the image of one eye
Monocular cues
Monocular cues
Interposition or overlap, relative size, aerial perspective, relative height, etc.
Clues about distance requiring two eyes
Binocular cues
Binocular cues
Include the more important retinal disparity and less important convergence
Discrepancies between the appearance of a visual stimulus and its physical reality
Optical or visual illusions
Concept or frameworks that organize and interpret information
Schemas
Controversial claims that perception can occur apart from sensory input
Extrasensory perception (ESP)
Study of paranormal events that investigates claims of ESP, including telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, etc.
Parapsychology
Cue: can be seen when a closer object cuts off the view of part or all of a more distant one
Interposition or overlap
Cue: closer of two same-size objects casts a larger image on your retina than the further one
Relative size
Cue: can be seen when closer objects appear sharper than more distant, hazy objects
Relative clarity
Cue: when closer objects have a coarser, more distinct texture than far away objects that appear more densely packed
Texture gradient
Cue: can be seen when the objects closest to the horizon appear to be the farthest from you. Lowest objects in our field of vision seem the closest
Relative height or elevation
Cue: when parallel lines, such as edges of sidewalks, seem to converge in the distance
Linear perspective
Cue: when the closer of two identical objects reflects more light to your eyes
Relative brightness
