Sensation and perception Flashcards
Define sensation
receiving information through sensory input
Define perception
Interpreting information from sensory input
Define proprioception
ability to be aware of your body’s motions and position
Define transduction
transforming information into electrical impulses that the brain can understand
Who called the study of how external stimuli affect us psychophysics
Gustav Fechner
What kind of threshold refers to the weakest possible stimulus that a person can still perceive
The absolute threshold or the detection threshold
What does signal detection analysis test
ability to distinguish real sounds from background noise
What is known as sensitivity
ability to hear real signals and correctly say when there aren’t signals
What threshold refers to our ability to detect a change in a stimulus’ intensity?
The difference threshold
What does the Weber’s law say?
the “just noticeable difference of a stimulus is proportional to the original intensity of the stimulus
How do you call the phenomena that lead the brain to stop paying attention to stimulus that stay the same for a long time
Sensory adaptation
What is selective attention
choosing to focus on certain sensations over others
What is human’s most important sense
Vision
What does vision involve?
A complicated process of converting light signals into images in the brain
Describe the process of vision
Light passes through the lens where it is focused, to the retina where photoreceptors calls rods and cones convert the information to electrical impulses that can be interpreted by the brain
What are rods
photoreceptors perceiving black and white
What are cones
Photoreceptors perceiving colors
What does propose the Young Helmets theory?
That we have three different kinds of cones that process different colors (one for blue, one for green and one for red) (It was unsatisfying to explain why people can see yellow)
What theory explains that we have three sets of opponent colors
the opponent process theory
What occurs in phototransduction?
The retina converts electromagnetic light waves into electronic stimuli.
What does visible spectrum refers to?
The range of wavelengths that the human eye can perceive.
In which order does light enters the eye?
Cornea, pupil and then the lens.
Where are the photoreceptor neurons, rods and cones, located in?
Retina
What experiment exposed infants as young as six months old to Plexiglas-covered drop-off
The Gibson and Walk’s famous visual cliff experiment
What are the 2 main kind of depth cues
Binocular and monocular
What does mean the monocular cue called interposition
When you judge than on object is closer to you than an other because one overlap the other.
What the monocular cue producing the impression that 2 lines seems to converge as they get further away
things that are farther away seem to get closer together
When thing appears physically higher up it refers to the monocular cue called
position cue
what does relative size mean
An object further away seems small than those closer
Define motion parallax
Things closer seem to move faster than things in the distance.
When a distant object seems less distinct than a closer object it is called
texture gradient
Define aerial perspective
things in the distance appear foggier than things nearby
What does retinal disparity mean
2 eyes a little bit apart from each other generate 2 slightly different images to send to the brain
What does sound made of
molecules vibrating in patterns called waves
What do sound waves need to travel
some sort of matter to disturb
What do affect the length of sound wave
Frequency
Short->high
Long-> low
To what feature of sound loudness is related
Amplitude
Define amplitude
The height of the sound wave. The bigger the wave the louder the sound
To say that the decibel scale is logarithmic means
that if 1 sound is 10 decibel louder than another, it’s actually 10 times as loud
How does the hear process sound and turns it into signal that can be interpreted by the brain
Sound first enters the ear and reverberates around the pinna, or folds of cartilage in the outermost part of the ear. Then it travels down the auditory canal, which amplifies the sound until it hits the eardrum. The eardrum rests up against the ossicles, which are those tiny bones we were talking about at the very beginning. There are three of them, and they help transform the sound from vibrations in the air to vibrations in the fluid inside the nearby cochlea. The cochlea looks kind of like a twisty seashell; it’s filled with fluid and with small hair cells that support bundles of cilia, small fibers that can sense vibrations in the fluid. These hair cells send nerve impulses to nearby neurons. These signals then travel down the auditory nerve and into the brain.
What does make possible to tell where sounds are coming from
our ear placement
Define proprioception
how we make sense of our bodies’ actions and reactions related to the 5 senses.
List the 5 tastes the tongue can detect are
sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (also known as savory)
What are taste bud
receptor on the tongue telling neurons to fire off signals when certain substance touch them
Not all receptors on the tongue are related to taste
true or false?
True. Minty food or spicy food are example of nerve reaction not directly related to taste.
Define a lock and key system
A neuron will only fire if a particular odor molecule comes along and activates it
How many odors the human nose can tell apart
almost 10,000 odors (and it is less developed than other mammals)
To what system both touch and proprioception are considered to be part of
The somatosensory system
which report sensations of pressure, body position and pain
What is the name of the largest body’s organ? and to what does it respond to?
The skin: pressure, hot, cold, pain
What is the sense of proprioception
specialized neurons inside the body that fire off signal when our muscles move in order to help keep track of where our limbs are.
When you have a cold and feel dizzy or disoriented when system causes it
The vestibular system (also helps to keep track of where our body is and is controlled by the fluid inside the ear)
What are the senses that are closely related
taste and smell
What produces all the feeling that we have
A combination of the four skin basic sensations : pain, hot, cold and pressure.
Why do newborn have poor vision
the part of the eye that deals with details, called the fovea, isn’t completely developed at birth
What newborn’s senses facilitate better communication and bounding with their mothers
The sense of touch, smell and hearing
The _____ theory of hearing states that auditory neurons in the ear fire action potentials at the same rate as the frequency of the sound they respond to.
frequency
What is an example of the aerial perspective?
Items in the distance appear foggier than things nearby.
Finish the analogy: _____ is to receiving as perception is to interpreting
Sensation
Where are cilia located in the ear?
in the cochlea
Which structure is located at the back of the eye and contains the rods and cones?
Retina
