Sensation and Perception Flashcards
What is the difference between sensations, perceptions and transductions?
S - environment used to create understanding of world
P - combination of sensations arriving from sensory system and prior knowledge
T - sensations translated to electrochemical transmission of brain
What is the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing?
BU - physical sensations begin early level analysis
TD - combines sensory input with prior knowledge to derive meaning and value
- effected by personal experience
What are the 6 fundamental organization of information?
- figure-ground
- principle of proximity
- principle of similarity
- principle of closure
- principle of good continuation
- principle of common fate
What is the part light travels in the eye?
a. cornea
b. pupil (big/small) / iris (color of eye)
c. lens (close and far)
d. vitreous humor (liquid)
e. retina (where light is focused)
what is the pathway light passes in the retina?
a. rods and cones
b. bipolar cells
c. ganglion cells
explain the difference between rods and cones?
R - low light, information about movement, located in the periphery, 30% of visual information, light intensity
C - color, detail/ focus, 70% of visual, located in fovea
what is the transduction in the eye?
retina
What are the 2 parts of the retina?
- fovea (where light should be focused)
- optic nerve/ blind spot (long axon) - where the optic nerve leaves the eye
what are the 3 main parts of the visual pathway?
- lateral geniculate nucleus
- visual striate cortex
- retinotopic organization
What are the color matches of cells firing in opposition fashion?
- red/ green
- blue/ yellow
- black/ white
what are the 6 ways of perceiving depth from 1 eye - monocular cues?
- occlusion - in front/ behind
- relative height - distance
- relative size - size by small or big
- perspective convergence - POV
- familiar size - small elephant is far away
- atmospheric perspective - things farther away appear more blue
What is the trichromatic theory?
- color occurs in 3 kinds of cones
- depending on how each cones is fired with each wavelength, different colors appear.
What are the 2 opposing process theories?
a. trichromatic theory explains color vision in cones
b. opponent process explains color with ganglion cells
Explain depth perception for via binocular cues?
- requires information from both eyes
retinal disparity: difference between where the sane object falls on both retinas
Where is transduction in the ear?
hair cells
What is the pathways of sound in the ear?
a. pinna
b. tympanic membrane
c. ossicles
d. oval window
e. cochlea (basilar membrane)
What is the difference between place theory and frequency theory?
PT - different frequencies stimulate specific areas of the basilar membrane
FT - pitch perception is also based on firing rate of hair cells
what is sound localization?
sound reaches one ear before the other so you are able to tell where the object is, even with your eyes closed.
What is the difference between involuntary musical imagery and the McGurk effect?
MG - enhance speech perception, demonstrating the interplay between auditory and visual systems.
What is the difference between odorants and chemoreceptors and where are these signals combined?
O - stimuli that create sensations of smell and taste
C - respond to properties in air molecules
- orbitofrontal cortex
What is the difference between the olfactory mucosa and the olfactory receptor neuron (ORN)?
OM - location of receptor cells
ORN - receptors that send messages to glomeruli
- over 350 different kinds
What are the 4 areas for taste receptors in papillae?
- filiform (no taste buds)
- fungiform
- foliate
- circumvallate
How many taste sensitive cells are on each taste bud?
50-100
How does skin provide information?
- temperature
- pain
- surface qualities of objects
- body location in space
What are mechanoreceptors and what are the 4 kinds of receptors - skin?
cells that respond to pressure
a. Merkel receptor (keep firing until hands removed- fingers/lips - fine details)
b. Meissen corpuscle (activates and inactivates with pressure - fingers/ eyelids - vibrations)
c. Ruffini cylinder (stretch skin)
d. Pacinian corpuscle (vibration)
What is special about the somatosensory cortex?
somatotopic organization - each area of brain stays organized with each part of the body (more space = more feeling)
- partial lobe
How does the body sense where it is in location in space?
- uses receptors in the joints and muscles
- uses somatosensory cortex
Where does the sense of balance come from?
- semicircular canals: sense changes in acceleration and rotation of head
- vestibular sacs (ear): respond to balance and posture
What is the stimulus detection theory?
- absolute threshold to detect stimulus: from when we don’t to when we do experience a sensation
- signal detection: biases in detecting stimuli
- liberal: reports stimuli when it isn’t
- conservative: reports stimuli when it is present
- liberal: reports stimuli when it isn’t
What is difference threshold?
the smallest amount of change in a stimulus that a person a can detect 50% of the time
What is weber’s law?
explains difference threshold
- the higher the intensity of a stimulus, the more it needs to change before a person can notice a difference
What are the cultural differences in perception?
individual: focus on individual interest/ one thing
collective: focused on the big picture
What is innate organization tendencies?
gestalt psychologists propose that humans have natural tendencies to organize information meaningfully
- prioritize information over background noise
