sensation adn perception Flashcards
Sensation
detect physical energy from the environment and encode it as neutral signals
Perception
is the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting our sensations
Bottom-up processing
analysis that begins with the sense receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory info
Top-down processing
Information processing guided by higher level mental processes
Absolute threshold
the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time
Just noticeable difference
minimum difference a person can detect between any two stimuli 50% of the time
Weber’s law
two stimuli must differ by a constant proportion to be perceived as different
Signal Detection theory
focuses on decision making about stimuli under conditions of uncertainty
Attention
is the process of focusing awareness on a narrowed aspect of the environment
Selective attention
focusing on a specific aspect of experience while ignoring others
Cocktail party effect
the ability to concentrate on one voice in a noisy place
Shiftable attention
the ability to have your attention shift from one sensory perception to another
Inattentional blindness
refers to the failure to detect unexpected events when our attention is engaged by a task
Emotion-induced blindness
when we encountered an emotionally charged stimulus, we often fail to recognize a stimulus that is presented immediately after it.
Perceptual set
predisposition or readiness to perceive something in a particular way