Sensation and Perception Flashcards
transduction
the action of converting energy into another form (sound waves to sounds in the brain, receptors on tongue to taste)
bottom-up processing
taking sensory information and then assembling and integrating it (from touch/action to brain)
top-down processing
using models, ideas, and expectations to interpret sensory information; start at cognitive experiences and work backward
absolute thresholds
faintest sensory that you can experience (quitest sound you can hear, faintest touch you feel)
difference thresholds
minimum difference a person can detect between two stimuli (cinnamon bun looks like Mother Teresa, candles on cake)
signal detection theory
some sensory stimulation and we have to signal whether or not it is there (hearing test)
hit (terms of hearing test)
when there is a tone and you raise your hand
correct negative (terms of hearing test)
no tone and you didn’t raise your hand
false alarm (terms of hearing test)
when you claim to hear something that wasn’t there
miss (terms of hearing test)
there was a sound and you didn’t indicate that you heard it
sensory adaption
when you are constantly exposed to something so you notice it less, keeps us from responding to the same stimulus over and over again (ex. not feeling your shoes or the seat you are in)
perceptual set
priming the person to make them see what you want them to (mad and shocked face, young to old woman, hybrid in the middle)
perceptual set and context effects
picture with man throwing spear at deer but with an elephant in the background showing some sense of depth
demonstration of context
baby not exposed to 2D but could recognize pictures, upside-down face/thatcher illusion, not reading each letter but the word as a whole
kinesthetic sense
cerebellum, where your body parts are and what they are doing
vestibular sense
cerebellum, sensing that you are upright and when you move/rotate your head; part of the theory of how it impacts our navigation
touch
vital to humans, warning system that keeps us safe, shown to help premie babies get back on track
vision
occipital, rely on it
sensation is to __ as perception is to __
bottom-up processing, top-down processing
the process by which we organize and interpret sensory information is called ___
perception
subliminal stimuli are
below our absolute threshold for conscious awareness
another term for difference threshold is
just noticeable difference
weber’s law states that for a difference to be perceived, two stimuli must differ by
a constant minimum percentage
sensory adaption helps us focus on
important changes in the environment
our perceptual set influences what we perceive. this mental tendency reflects our
experiences, assumptions, and expectations
the characterisitic of light that determines the color we experience, such as blue or green, is
wavelength
the amplitude of a light wave determines our perception of
brightness
the blindspot in your retina is located where
the optic nerve leaves the eye
cones are to the eye’s receptor cells that are especially sensitive to ___ light and are responsible for our ___ vision
bright; color
two theories together account for color vision. The young-helmholtz trichromatic theory shows that the eye contains ____ and Hering’s theory accounts for the nervous system’s having
3 types of color receptors; opponent-process cells
what mental process allows you to see a lemon as yellow?
light energy is reflected into your eye, goes through the cones, then opponent-process cells go through thalamus and visual cortex, identifying the brain
what three colors are the cones sensitive to?
red, green, and blue
the cells in the visual cortex that respond to certain lines, edges, and angles are called
feature detectors
the brains ability to process many aspects of an object or a problem simultaneously is called
parallel processing
in listening to a concert, you attend to the solo instrument and perceive the orchestra as accompaniment. this illustrates the organizing principle of
figure-ground
our tendencies to fill in the gaps and to perceive a pattern as continuous are two different examples of the organizing principle called
grouping
the visual cliff experiment shows that
crawling human infants and very young animals perceive depth
depth perception underlies our ability to
judge differences
two examples of ____ depth are interposition and linear perspective
monocular
perceiving a tomato as consistently red, despite lighting shifts, is an example of
perceptual constancy
after surgery to restore vision, adults who had been blind from birth had difficulty
recognizing objects by sight
in experiments, people have worn glasses that turned their visual fields upside down. after this period of adjustment, they learned to function quite well. this ability is called
perceptual adaption
snail-shaped tube in the inner ear, where sound waves are converted into neural activity
cochlea
basic steps in transforming sound waves into perceived sound
outer ear to middle ear to inner ear to auditory nerve to brain
_ theory is how we link place with pitch while __ theory is how we sense pitch
place; frequency
sensory receptors found mostly in the skin and detect painful or dangerous stimuli are
nociceptors
gate control theory
small spinal cord nerve fibers conduct most pain signals but large fiber activity can close access to those pain signals
how did specialized nerve receptors impact our history?
to detect pleasurable tastes enabled ancestors to seek out energy or protein rich foods
why are you dizzy after a roller coaster?
your vestibular senses are adjusting
a food’s aroma can greatly enhance its taste, an example of
sensory interaction
what are our five specialized nerve receptors for taste?
sour, sweet, bitter, salty and umami
