SENSATION AND PERCEPTION Flashcards
Absolute threshold
The minimum amount of stimulation needed for a person to detect the stimulus 50 percent of the time.
Accommodation
The process by which the shape of an eye’s lens adjusts to focus light from objects nearby or far away. Also: the modification of a schema as new information is incorporated.
Adaptation
An inherited characteristic that increases in a population because it provides a survival or reproductive advantage.
Afterimage
A color we perceive after another color is removed.
Amplitude
The height of a wave.
Auditory nerve
A nerve that sends impulses from the ear to the brain.
Basilar membrane
A membrane in the inner ear that runs along the length of the cochlea.
Binocular cues
Depth perception cues that require both eyes.
Cilia
Hair cells that are embedded in the basilar membrane of the ear.
Closure
The tendency to interpret familiar, incomplete forms as complete by filling in gaps.
Cochlea
A coiled tunnel in the inner ear that is filled with fluid.
Color blindness
A hereditary condition that makes people unable to distinguish between colors.
Cones
Photoreceptor cells in the retina that allow people to see in color.
Conservation
The ability to recognize that measurable physical characteristics of objects can be the same even when objects look different.
Continuity
The tendency to perceive interrupted lines and patterns as being continuous by filling in gaps.
Convergence
The turning inward of eyes when an object is viewed close up.
Cornea
The transparent outer membrane of the eye.
Dark adaptation
The process by which receptor cells become more sensitive to light.
Dichromat
A person who is sensitive to only two of the three wavelengths of light.
Difference threshold
The smallest difference in stimulation that is detectable 50 percent of the time. This threshold is also called the just noticeable difference, or jnd.
Feature detectors
Specialized neurons that are activated by specific features of the environment.
Figure
What stands out when people organize visual information.
Fovea
The center of the retina, where vision is sharpest.
Frequency
The number of times per second a sound wave cycles from the highest to the lowest point.
Frequency theory
A theory explaining how people discriminate low-pitched sounds that have a frequency below 1000 Hz.
Gestalt psychology
A German school of thought that studies how people organize visual information into patterns and forms.
Ground
The background in which a figure stands when people organize visual information.
Illusion
A misinterpretation of a sensory stimulus.
Iris
A ring of muscle that surrounds the pupil in the eye.
Lens
Part of the eye behind the pupil and iris. It can adjust its shape to focus light from objects that are near or far away.
Light
A kind of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the sun, stars, fire, and lightbulbs.
Light adaptation
The process by which receptor cells become less sensitive to light.