Perception and Sensation Flashcards
What is sensation?
The detection of simple properties of stimuli such as brightness, colour, warmth and sweetness
What is perception?
The detection of objects, their locations, their movements and their backgrounds
What is functional validation?
The notion that the nervous system has to be stimulated during development in order for it to develop properly
Transduction is…
The process by which the sense organs convert energy from environmental events into neural activity
What is anatomical coding?
Coding dependent on the anatomical location of the nerve, for example, you can distinguish between a touch on the arm or the knee as different nerves are stimulated
What is temporal coding?
Coding information in terms of time, the simplest form is rate, firing at a faster or slower rate according to the intensity of the stimulus
Just-Noticeable difference
- Ernst Weber
- The smallest change in magnitude of a stimulus that a person can detect
What is the JND for weight?
1 in 40
What is the JND for brightness of white light?
1 in 60
What are the ratios of JNDs called?
Weber ratios
What is the difference threshold?
The minimum detectable difference between two stimuli
What is an absolute threshold?
The minimum value of the stimulus that can be detected from no stimulus at all
According to signal detection theory, every stimulus event requires discrimination between ____ and _____
Signal (stimulus); noise (both background and nervous activity)
The systematic study of the relation between the physical characteristics of stimuli and the sensations they produce is called
Psychophysics
An important principle of signal detection theory is that detection of any stimulus requires that we discriminate between __________ and __________
Signal; noise
The human retina contains two types of photoreceptors; they are
Rods and cones
The chemosenses are our senses of
Taste and smell
Unlike information from other sensory modalities, olfactory information is sent directly to the
Limbic system
The Gestalt principle which states that elements that are positioned closely together as a group will be perceived as belonging together is the __________ principle
Proximity
Bottom-up processing is to __________ as top-down processing is to __________
Data driven; context driven
A series of studies by Perrett et al. has demonstrated that perceived facial attractiveness is related to having a(n)
Thinner jaw
Stereopsis occurs because
Each eye receives a slightly different image of a visual scene
The top of a convex object appears light coloured while the bottom appears darker. Thus, our visual system appears to interpret this object as if it were illuminated from above. The cue to depth at work in this context is
Shading
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that
Language can determine thought
If you wanted to make a white card look whiter you would place it
On a grey background
Tootell et al. (1995) asked people to watch series of concentric rings moving outwards. When the rings suddenly stopped moving, participants reported seeing
Continued movement in an inward direction
It is possible to create the illusion of movement by alternately turning on and off two small lights in a darkened room. This apparent movement of the light between two positions is called the
Phi phenomenon
What is a dichromat?
An individual who is missing a photopigment and therefore use only two primary colours