Sensation and Perception Flashcards
Sensation
The relationship between physical stimulation and its psychological effects
Perception
The way in which we recognize, interpret, and organize our sensations
Psychophysics
The branch of psychology that deals with the effect of physical stimuli on sensory response
Absolute threshold
The minimum amount of stimulation needed to detect a stimulus and cause the neuron to fire 50% of the time
Weber’s law
The greater the magnitude of the stimulus, the larger the differences must be to be noticed
Difference threshold
The minimal amount of distance between two stimuli that can be detected as distinct
Subliminal perception
A form of preconscious processing that occurs when we are presented with stimuli so rapidly that we are not consciously aware of them
Transduction
Receptors convert the stimulus into neural impulses, which are sent to the brain
Sensory coding
The process by which receptors convert a range of information to the brain
Single-cell recording
A technique by which the firing rate and pattern of a single receptor cell can be measured in response to varying sensory input
Visual sensation
The eye receives light input for the outside world
Distal stimulus
The object as it exists in the environment
Proximal stimulus
The image of the object on the retina
Cornea
Where light passes through; protective layer on the outside of the eye
Lens
Helps focus images on the retina
Retina
The screen onto which the proximal radius (images) are projected
Fovea
Center of the retina
Rods
Help see in low light (black and white)
Cones
Detects color in brighter light
Serial processing
The brain computes information step-by-step in a methodical and linear matter
parallel processing
The brain computes multiple pieces of information simultaneously
Trichromatic theory
The cones in the retina of the eye are activated by light waves as associated with blue, red, and green
Opponent theory
Cells within the thalamus respond to opponent pairs of receptor sets—black/white, red/green, and blue/yellow
Dichromats
People who cannot distinguish along the red/green of blue/yellow continuums
Monochromats
See only in shades of black and white
Auditory input
Enters the ear by passing through the outer ear and into the ear canal
Ossicles
The three tiny bones that comprise the middle ear
Stapes
Vibrates against the cochlea
Three parts of the middle ear
Malleus, incus, stapes
Cochlea
Hair cells
Place theory
Sound waves generate activity at different places along the basilar membrane
Frequency theory
Sense pitch because the rate of neural impulses is equal to the frequency of a particular sound
Conductive deafness
Injury of the outer or middle ear structures
Sensorineural deafness
Damage to the hair cell receptors or associated nerves
Vestibular sense
The sensation of balance
Kinesthesis
The location and position of the limbs and body parts
Adaption
Change in response to environmental stimuli
Habituation
The process by which we become accustomed to a stimulus and notice it less and less over time
Dishabitutation
A change in the stimulus, even a small change, causes us to notice it again
Attention
The processing through cognition of a select portion of the massive amount of information income from the sense and contained in memory
Selective attention
We try to attend to one thing while ignoring another
Filter theories
Stimuli must pass through some form of screen or filter to enter into attention
Attentional resource theories
We have only a fixed amount of attention, and this resource can be divided up as is required in a given situation
Divided attention
Trying to focus on more than one task at a time
Inattentional blindness
When people focus too intently on specific stimuli, they can miss the bigger picture going on around them
Bottom-up processing
Sending information to the brain that has no prior experiences with it
Top-down processing
Expectation/prior knowledge of income stimuli
Texture gradient
Textures appear to grow more dense as distance increases
Interposition
A near object partially blocks the view of an object behind it
Steropsis
The three-dimensional image of the world resulting from binocular vision
Proximity
The tendency to see objects near each other as forming groups
Similarity
The tendency to prefer grouping like objects
Symmetry
The tendency to perceive forms that make up mirror images
Continuity
The tendency to perceive fluid or continuous forms, rather that jagged or irregular ones
Closures
The tendency to see closed objects rather than those that are incomplete
