Psychology Chapter 2-Sensation and Perception Flashcards
What is the difference between sensation and perception?
Sensation is the conversion of external or internal information into electrical signals that the nervous system can use.
Perception is making sense of the sensory information
What are sensory receptors?
Nerves that respond to stimuli and trigger electrical signals
What are sensory ganglia?
Bundles of cell bodies [sensory neurons] outside of the central nervous system
What part of the brain further analyze the sensory input?
Projection Areas
What are examples of sensory receptors?
Photoreceptors, hair cells, nocireceptors, thermoreceptors, osmoreceptors, olfactory receptors and taste receptors.
What is a threshold?
The minimum stimulus that causes a change in signal transduction.
What is an absolute threshold?
The minimum stimulus energy that is needed to activate a sensory system.
What is the threshold of conscious perception?
The minimum of stimulus energy that will create a signal large enough in size and long enough induration to be brought into awareness
What is the difference threshold or just noticeable difference (JND)?
The minimum difference in magnitude between two stimuli before one can perceive this difference.
What is weber’s law?
This law quantify is the perception of changing a given stimulus.
The change in a stimulus that will be noticeable is a constant ratio of the original stimulus.
What is signal detection theory?
It takes into account the effects of non-sensory factors such as experiences motives and expectations on perception of stimuli.
Example: signal detection experiment looks at response bias for possible outcomes include: hits, false alarm, miss and correct negatives.
What is adaptation?
Decrease in response to a stimulus overtime
What is the purpose of the cornea?
The cornea gathers and filters in coming light.
What is the purpose of the iris?
Divides the front of the eye into anterior and posterior chamber’s.
It also dilates and constricts the people with its dilator and constrictor pupillae muscles
What to muscles cause the pupils to constrict?
Dilator and constrictor pupillae
What is the purpose of the lens of the eye?
Refracts light to focus on the retina.
What part of the eye produces aqueous humor?
The cillary body
Where are rods and cones located in the eye?
Retina
Which part of the eye contains only cones?
The fovea. Located inside of the macula.
What cells are involved in eyesight?
Bipolar, Ganglion cells, Horizontal, Amacrine
What is the visual pathway?
Optic Nerve
Optic Chiasm
Optic Tracts
Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (thalamus)
Visual Cortex (Occipital lobe)
Which cells of the eyes detect motion?
Magnocellular cells
What cells in the eyes detect shape?
Parvocellular cells
What parts of the ear make up the outer ear?
The pinna or the auricle
The external auditory canal
The tympanic membrane
What parts of the ear make up the middle ear?
The ossicles:
Malleus (Hammer)
Incus (Anvil)
Stapes (Stirrup)
The footplate of the stapes rests on which part of the inner ear?
The oval window of the cochlea
What tube connects the middle ear to the nasal cavity?
Eustachian tube
What parts of the ear make up the inner ear?
The membranous labyrinth.
The semicircular canal, cochlea, utricle, saccule
The bony labyrinth is filled with _________? The membranous labyrinth is filled with ________?
Bony is filled with perilymph
Membranous is filled with endolymph
What is the purpose of the cochlea?
It detects sound.
What is the purpose of the semicircular canal?
Detects rotational acceleration
What is the role of the utricle and saccule are in the membranous labyrinth?
Detects linear acceleration
What is the auditory pathway?
Vestibulocochlear nerve
Medial geniculate nucleus (thalamus)
Auditory cortex (temporal lobe)
What are the two parts of the brain does auditory information travel?
Superior olive (localizes sound)
Inferior colliculi (startle reflex, helps fix eyes to one spot when the head turns)
What nerves are responsible for smell?
Olfactory chemoreceptors/olfactory nerves
What is the pathway for smell?
Olfactory nerves
Olfactory bulb
Olfactory tract
Higher order brain areas (limbic system)
What are the five modalities of taste?
Sweet salty sour bitter or umami
What are the four touch modalities of somatosensation?
temperature pain pressure vibration
What is two point threshold?
The minimum distance between two points of stimulation on the skin such that the points will be felt as two distinct stimuli
What is physiological zero?
The normal temperature of the skin to which objects are compared to to determine if they feel warm or cold.
What are nociceptors?
Responsible for pain perception.
What is the gate theory of pain?
Pain sensation is reduced when other somatosensory signals are present.
What is kinesthetic/proprioception sense
The ability and awareness to tell where one’s body is in a three dimensional space
Bottom up processing
Data driven processing. Refers to recognition of objects by parallel processing and future detection.
Slower but less prone to mistakes.
Top down processing
(Conceptually driven)
Recognition of an object by memories and expectations with a little attention to detail.
Faster but more prone to mistakes.
What are Gestalt principles?
Ways that the brain can infer missing parts of a picture when a picture is in complete.
What is vestibular sense?
AKA labyrinthine sense, is an elaborate sense that is involved in body position and movement of the head.
What is the resulted loss of eyesight eyesight when the optic chiasm is damaged
It causes loss of eyesight in the nasal field of vision in both eyes.
What hemisphere processes information from the left visual field of both eyes? 
Right
What hemisphere processes information from the right visual field of both eyes?
Left hemisphere
