Sensation and Perception Flashcards
Ernst Weber
1834, De Tactu, investigation of muscle sense, just noticeable difference (jnd) in sensation
Gustav Fechner
relatinoship between physical stimuli and psychological responses to stimuli, Weber’s Law
Weber’s Law
mathematical expression of Weber’s discovery about just noticeable differences - states that the change in stimulus intensity needed to produce a jnd divided by the stimulus intensity of the standard stimulus is a constant, fits data except at very low and very high intensities
Sir Francis Galton
one of the first researchers interested in individual differences, measured sensory abilities of nearly 10,000 people
Max Wertheimer (1880-1943
Gestalt psychology founder, phi phenomenon
Absolute threshold
minimum of stimulus energy that is needed to activate a sensory system
Limen
threshold
Subliminal perception
perception of stimuli below a threshold
Difference threshold
how different two stimuli must be before they are perceived to be different
Just noticeable difference
amount o fchange necessary to predict the difference between two stimuli
Fechner’s law
relationship between ntensity of sensation and intensity of hte stimulus, derived from Weber’s law, sensation increases more slowly as intensity increases
Steven’s power Law
relates intensity of the stimulus to the intensity of the sensation 20th century, suggested Fechner’s law might be incorrect
Signal detection theory
other, nonsensory factors influence what the subject says she senses including experiences, motives and expectations
Response Bias
refers to the tendency of subjects to respond in a particular way due to nonsensory factors
Receiver operating characteristic (ROC)
employed by many researchers to graphically summarize a subject’s responses by measuring hte operating (sensitivity) characteristics of a subject receiving signals
John A. Swets
refined the use of ROC curves
Transduction
translation of physical energy into neural impulses or action potentials, electrochemical energy is sent to various projection areas in the brain along with various neural pathways to be processed in the nervous system
Cornea
clear domelinke window int he front of the eye, gathers and focuses the incoming light
Pupil
hole in the iris contracts in bright light and expands in dim light to let mroe likght in
Iris
colored part of the eye, has involuntary muscles and autonomic nerve fibers, controls size of pupil and amount of light entering the eye
Lens
lies right behind the iris helps control the curvature of the light coming in and can focus near or distant onjects on the retina
Retina
back of the eye and like a screen filled with neural elements and blood vessels, image-detecting part of the eye
Duplexity/Duplicity theory of vision
retina contains two kinds of photoreceptors, organization of retinal cells makes light pass through intermediate sensory neurons before reaching and stimulating the photoreceptors
Rods
best in reduced illumination, perception of only achromatic coors, low sensitivity to detail and are not involved in color vision
Cones
color vision, perceiving fine detail, most effective in bright light and allow us to see chromatic and achromatic colors
Fovea
contains only cones, middle of the eye - as you move farther away less cones
bipolar neurons
connect rods and cones and ganglion cells
Ganglion Cells
connect bipolar neurons and form optic nerve, each cell represents combined imput of many rods and cones, loss of detail as information from the photorecepters is combined
Optic Chiasm
fibers from the nasal half of the retina cross paths
Lateral geniculate nucleus
part of the thalumus, used for vision
Used for vision
lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus, visual cortex in the occipital lobe, superior colliculus
Feature Detection Theory
Hubel and Wiesel figured out the neural basis in 1981 using single cell recording, certain cells in the cortex are maximally sensitive to certain features of stimuli, simple, complex, and hypercomplex cells
Simple Cells
Feature Detection Theory, information about orientation and boundaries of an object
Complex Cells
Feature Detection Theory, information about orientation such as movement
Hypercomplex Cells
Feature Detection Theory, abstract concepts such as object shape
Illumination
physical, objective measurement that is simply the amount of light falling on a surface
Brightness
subjective impression of the intensity of a light stimulus
Rhodopsin
photochemical in the rods, made up of vitamin A derivative, called retinal and a protein called opsin, bleached when
Bleaching
When a molecule of rhodopsin absorbs a photon of light, the pigment begins to decompose, or split, into retinene and opsin – takes time for pigments to regenerate
Simultaneous brightness contrast
a target area of a particular luminance appears brighter when surrounded by a darker stimulus than when surrounded by a lighter stimulus
Lateral inhibition
explanation for simultaneous brightness contrast, adjacent retinal cells inhibit one another, if a cell is exhited, other ones around it will be inhibited - sharpens and highlights borders between dark and light
Dark Adaptation
regeneration of rhodopsin, the photopigment in the rods allowing you to see in the dark, requires vitamin A
Color perception
wavelength of light entering the eye (400 - 800 nanometers for humans)
Subtractive color mixture
mix pigments