Sensation and Perception Flashcards
Perception
How you understand your environment by interpreting your sensations
**associated with top-down processing
Sensation
How you experience your environment by bringing in energy through your eyes, ears, etc.
**associated with bottom-up processing
Bottom-Up Processing
Analysis that begins with sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory info
- new
- *detecting lines, angles, and colors that form the horses, riders, and surroundings
Top-down processing
Guided by higher level mental process, such as experience, motivation, and expectations
- old
- *consider the painting’s title, notice the apprehensive expressions, and attend to aspects that give meaning
Perceptual adaptation
Ability to adjust to an artificially displaced visual field
Psychophysics
The study of how physical energy relates to our psychological experience
Transduction
Conversion of one form of energy into another
Absolute threshold
The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time
**basically tells us absolute limit of our sensation
Difference threshold
The minimum difference a person can detect between any two stimuli half the time
**also called just noticeable difference
Weber’s Law
Difference thresholds differ by a percentage rather than amount
Signal detection theory
Predicts when we will detect a particular stimulus amid competing background stimuli
Subliminal messages
Anything below our absolute threshold
Sensory adaptation
Decreased sensation due to constant stimulation
Intensity (brightness)
height of a wave
hue (color)
length of the wave
long-red
short-blue
pupil
adjustable opening in the center of the eye, lets light in
iris
a ring of muscle that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening
cornea
protects the eye and bends light to provide focus
lens
transparent structure behind pupil that changes shape through accommodation to focus images on the retina
retina
the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, contains receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the process of visual info
optic nerve
nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain
blind spot
point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a “blind spot” because there are no receptor cells there
fovea
central point in the retina, around which the eye’s cones cluster
acuity
sharpness of vision
nearsightedness
far blurry
farsightedness
near blurry
how does light energy reach the brain?
light energy –> rods and cones –> bipolar cells –> ganglion cells (axons form the optic)
rods
peripheral of retina
detect black, white, and gray
twilight or low light
cones
center of retina
color vision
daylight or well-lit conditions
feature detectors
nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features
shape, angle, movement
parallel processing
processing of several aspects of an object simultaneously
trichromatic theory
cones in your eye combine to form all the colors you can see
*red, green, blue
opponent-process theory
your eye sensory receptors work in pairs
*red/green, yellow/blue, black/white
volume
height of the wave
pitch
frequency of the wave
measuring unit for sound
decibels
transduction of the ear
- ) sound waves hit the ear drum
- ) vibrations travel through the middle ear, the oval window, and the cochlea
- ) hair cells vibrate sending impulses up the auditory nerve to the thalamus
Cochlea
lined with a mucus called the basilar membrane, containing hair cells
Biology of ear
study the ear diagram
place theory
the pitch we hear depends on the place where the cochlea’s membrane is stimulated
frequency theory
the pitch we hear depends on the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve
conduction deafness
hearing loss caused by something going wrong with the vibrations through the ear
sensorineuronal deafness
hair cells are damaged; typically caused by loud noises
four skin senses
pressure, pain, warmth, and cold
gate-control theory
the spinal cord contains a neurological “gate” that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass onto the brain
papillae
bumps on our tongues where our taste buds are located
five taste sensation
sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami
Smell
olfaction, linked to taste and emotion,
fragrance molecules reach receptors at top of nose –> brain’s olfactory bulb –> limbic system (memory and emotion)
kinesthetic
the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts
vestibular
sense of balance; informs our body’s of orientation in space
selective attention
focus of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus
inattentional blindness
failing to see visible objects when our attention is diverted elsewhere
change blindness
failing to notice a visual change when our attention is diverted elsewhere
gestalt psychology
focused on how our minds group things together and tend to look at the “whole” picture
depth perception
ability to see objects in 3D; enables us to judge distance
visual cliff
once babies are old enough to crawl, they have developed depth perception and will not cross off a cliff
monocular cues
methods used by a single eye to judge depth perception
binocular cues
methods used by both eyes to judge depth perception
retinal disparity
our eyes each see a different image; the closer the image the greater the disparity
convergence
as an object nears our face, our eyes come together
phi phenomenon
illusion of movement created when two or more lights adjacent blink on and off in quick succession
perceptual consistency
perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal image change (color, shape, size)
perceptual set
a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another
human factors psychology
explores how people and machines interact
**explores how machines and physical environments can be adapted to human behaviors
parapsychology
the study of paranormal phenomena
extrasensory perception (ESP)
controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input NO PROOF
telepathy
mind to mind communication
clairvoyance
perceiving remote events
precognition
perceiving future events
psychokinesis
mind over matter
