Perception Flashcards
4 types of sensation:
Light, chemicals, mechanical forces (pressure), temperature.
Stimuli from the physical world:
Distal stimuli.
Stimuli from the mental world:
Proximal stimuli.
Philosophy stating that knowledge that comes from outside the mind, that our environment shapes us.
Empiricism.
Philosophy stating that certain fundamental principles shape knowledge, that we shape ourselves.
Rationalism.
What transforms physical information into neural signals?
Receptors.
4 types of receptors in humans:
Photoreceptors, mechanoreceptors, chemoreceptors, thermoreceptors.
What is light?
Electromagnetic radiation.
What do lightwaves contain?
Information about surfaces.
What happens when light hits a photopigment?
It splits, activating the photoreceptor cell, which is called the “moment of transduction” from lightwave to neural impulse.
What is the cause for dark adaptation?
Photopigment depletion.
Why does the pupil constrict and widen?
To control the amount of light coming in, optimising sensitivity of the photoreceptors for the light conditions.
Where do photoreceptors exist?
At the back of the eye.
Why do photoreceptors exist at the back of the eye?
So that photopigments can be readily replenished.
2 types of photoreceptors:
Rods and cones.
Rods:
Highly sensitive but not very accurate. Slow response, peripheral and low-light achromatic vision, one type of rod, 120 million.
Cones:
Highly accurate but not very sensitive. Rapid response, detailed, central, chromatic vision, 3 types of cones (short/b, medium/g, long/r), 6 million.
Colour blindness:
Most commonly lose red/green differentiation, common in caucasian males.
Where are cones concentrated?
On the fovea.
Where are rods on the retina?
Fewer in the periphery, increase towards the fovea, but none at the fovea.
What are eye movements good for?
Bringing new objects of interest to the fovea, keeps eyes fixed and stable when head and body move, prevent images from fading by shifting their position on the fovea.
Why do we have a blindspot?
Because the eye needs a place where the axons of 1.2 million retinal ganglion cells come together to form the optic nerve. You can’t have any photoreceptors there.
Why are edges important?
They signal the presence of an object or boundary, and the visual system exaggerates edges.
2 retinal mechanisms for edge enhancement:
Lateral inhibition, center-surround retinal ganglion cells.
Lateral inhibition:
Disables the spreading of action potentials from excited neurons to neighboring neurons in the lateral direction. This creates a contrast in stimulation that allows increased sensory perception.
Center-surround retinal ganglion cells.
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Receptive field:
The place/type of stimulus that elicits a response in a given neuron.
How do neurons respond to the stimulus?
They respond selectively to specific regions/stimuli, from sensory receptors all the way through to cortical brain areas. Respond = change firing rate (increase/decrease).
Mapping the receptive field. Easy or difficult?
Easier at the early stages, more difficult the further you go into the visual system.
2 types of retinal ganglion cells:
Midget cells, parasol cells.
Midget cells:
Receive input from cones, smaller number of cells, project to the parvocellular pathway (high acuity color pathway to the brain)
Parasol cells:
Receive input from rods, large number of cells, project to the magnocellular pathway (low acuity but highly sensitive pathway to the brain, low light, peripheral vision)
What’s color?
Differences in the pattern of cone activation to different wavelengths of energy. Cone/rod distribution determine the experience of central/peripheral vision. Edges are exaggerated.
Mechanoreceptors:
Sense mechanical pressure. Physically deforming a mechanoreceptor causes ion channels to open, which causes the cell to fire.
3 classes of mechanoreceptors:
Inner ear, skin, muscles & tendons
Movement of hair cells in the inner ear:
Hearing, inertia, gravity.
Pressure and stretch receptors in the skin:
Light touch, texture, stretch, pain.
What’s sound?
A (sine) wave of moving air, the amount of pressure over a certain period of time.
The frequency of sound.
High frequency, high-pitched/low frequency, low-pitched.
The amplitude of sound.
High amplitude, loud sound, low amplitude, soft sound.
Auditory hair cells:
Ion channels on adjacent hairs are connected by a ‘tip link.’ Movement of the hair cells pulls the ion channels open, depolarizing (activating) the cell.
Mechanoreceptors in the cochlea provide:
Loudness, pitch, timbre, NOT location (that’s time and volume differences).
The liquid in the semicircular canals.
Endolymph. Viscosity can change which will interfere with perception.
What do the inner ears contain?
Otolith organs. (sense of gravity)
Mechanoreceptors in the skin.
Light touch, firm pressure, vibration, pain & skin stretch. All are specialised for different types of pressure.
Haptic touch.
Exploring objects with your subcutaneous mechanoreceptors.