Sensation And Perception (4) Flashcards
absolute threshold
The minimum intensity of stimulation necessary to detect a sensation half the time.
audition
Hearing; the sense of sound perception.
binocular depth cues
Cues of depth perception that arise from the fact that people have two eyes.
binocular disparity
A depth cue; because of the distance between the two eyes, each eye receives a slightly different retinal image.
bottom-up processing
Perception based on the physical features of the stimulus.
cones
Retinal cells that respond to higher levels of light and result in color perception.
convergence
A cue of binocular depth perception; when a person views a nearby object, the eye muscles turn the eyes inward.
difference threshold
The minimum amount of change required to detect a difference between two stimuli.
eardrum
A thin membrane that marks the beginning of the middle ear; sound waves cause it to vibrate.
fovea
The center of the retina, where cones are densely packed.
gustation
The sense of taste.
haptic sense
The sense of touch.
monocular depth cues
Cues of depth perception that are available to each eye alone.
motion parallax
A monocular depth cue observed when moving relative to objects, in which the objects that are closer appear to move faster than the objects that are farther away.
object constancy
Correctly perceiving objects as constant in their shape, size, color, and lightness, despite raw sensory data that could mislead perception.
olfaction
The sense of smell.
olfactory bulb
The brain center for smell, located below the frontal lobes.
olfactory epithelium
A thin layer of tissue within the nasal cavity that contains the receptors for smell.
perception
The processing, organization, and interpretation of sensory signals in the brain.
place coding
A mechanism for encoding the frequency of auditory stimuli in which the frequency of the sound wave is encoded by the location of the hair cells along the basilar membrane.
retina
The thin inner surface of the back of the eyeball, which contains the sensory receptors that transduce light into neural signals.
Rods
Retinal cells that respond to low levels of light and result in black-and-white perception.
sensation
The detection of physical stimuli and the transmission of this information to the brain.
sensory adaptation
A decrease in sensitivity to a constant level of stimulation.
signal detection theory (SDT)
A theory of perception based on the idea that the detection of a stimulus requires a judgment—it is not an all-or-nothing process.
sound wave
A pattern of changes in air pressure during a period of time; it produces the perception of a sound.
taste buds
Sensory organs in the mouth that contain the receptors for taste.
temporal coding
A mechanism for encoding low-frequency auditory stimuli in which the firing rates of cochlear hair cells match the frequency of the sound wave.
top-down processing
The interpretation of sensory information based on knowledge, expectations, and past experiences.
transduction
The process by which sensory stimuli are converted to neural signals the brain can interpret.
vestibular sense
Perception of balance determined by receptors in the inner ear.
