Sensation & Perception Flashcards
Translating messages (stimuli) from the environment into neural impulses
Sensation
Producing stable interpretations of the sensory input
Perception
The field of psychology that focuses on sensation and perception
Psychophysics
________ is the basic building blocks of experience
sensation
“Bottom-up” processing refers to….
sensory processing
______ is our experience of stimuli/ events
Perception
“Top-down” processing refers to….
perceptual processing
Is sensual processing physical or psychological?
Physical
Is perceptual processing physical or psychological?
Psychological
What do optical illusions show?
They show the difference between sensation and perception
we sense a _______ world
We perceive a _______ world
2D
3D
What 3 structuralists were discussed in perception and sensation?
Wundt, Fechner, Weber
Who studied sense of taste in 4 elementary tastes?
Titchener
Fundamental and innate organizing principles of visual perception:
Gestaltists (“form”)
What are the 5 senses?
Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste
Stimuli for sight
Sight: Vision – electromagnetic energy (wavelengths of light)
Stimuli for sound
Hearing – physical (soundwaves through air)
Stimuli for touch
Physical – (pressure on receptors in skin produce neural impulse)
Stimuli for smell
– Chemical (molecules in air or liquid in nose/ throat)
Stimuli for taste
Chemical (molecules stimulate taste receptors on tongue)
From the physical world (stimulus) to the language of the mind (neural impulses)
Transduction
__________ allows our brain to manipulate environmental data
transduction
What are photoreceptors
rods and cones
Vision:
Light -> retina -> _________ -> neuron fires -> optic nerve -> visual cortex
Photoreceptors
Hearing:
Sound waves -> cochlea -> ________________ -> neuron fires -> auditory nerve -> auditory cortex
basilar membrane hair cells
what does transducing mean?
Changing stimuli to neural impulse
what are the 2 types of photoreceptors?
Rods & Cones
Photoreceptors are ______ neurons
sensory
Which photoreceptors are responsible for color?
Cones
_________ in photoreceptors chemically react to light
photopigments
Ganglion Cells have final output in the _______ .
Retina
The inability to recognize faces is called…
prosopagnosia
prosopagnosia is…
the inability to recognize faces
How many types of cones are there?
3 different types
how does color blindness result?
results from having wrong kind of photopigment in cones
______ processing is controlled by physical messages delivered to the senses
Bottom-up
________ processing is controlled by one’s beliefs, expectations about the world
Top-down
How many Gestalt principles are there?
5
What are the 5 Gestalt Principles
Proximity, Similarity, Good Continuity, Closure, Common Fate
Gestalt Principles:
______ refers to distance; closer objects are grouped together
Proximity
Gestalt Principles:
Features which are similar are associated or grouped together. This is…
Similarity
Gestalt Principles:
__________ refers to the ability to continue on the same way continuously indefinitely.
Good Continuity
Gestalt Principles:
Interpretations which produce ‘closed’ rather than ‘open’ figures are favored.
Closure
Gestalt Principles:
If things appear to be moving in the same direction, we group them together.
Common Fate
What are the two different categories of depth cues?
Monocular and Binocular
______ depth cues require input from only one eye
Monocular
_______ depth cues depend on both eyes
Binocular
How many types of Binocular Depth Cues are there?
Two
What are the two types of Binocular Depth Cues?
Retinal Disparity & Convergence
Depth Cues:
Difference between location of images in each retina
Retinal Disparity
Depth Cues:
How far the eyes turn inward (converge) to focus on an object
Convergence
What does PSE stand for?
Photosensitive Epilepsy
Our perception of objects is far more constant or stable than our retinal images
Perceptual constancy
is Perceptual Constancy bottom-up or top-down?
Top-down
Perceiving someone walking away is an example of…
Size constancy
Perceiving a door closing is…
Shape constancy
Wrong interpretations of physical reality
Perceptual illusions
In the US, when we look at the stair illusion we see stairs going UP. Why?
Because we are left to right readers
Sound is ________ energy
Mechanical
Sound is cause by…
a vibrating stimulus
List the 3 main parts of the ear
Outer ear, middle ear, inner ear
in the outer ear, sound funnels from ____ to eardrum.
pinna
In the ______ ear, Malleus, incus, and stapes bones vibrate
Middle
In the inner ear, Vibrations are sent to the ______
Cochlea
Sensing of pain is called…
nociception
Weber’s law gives us…
the proportion for determining the just noticeable difference
absolute threshold is determined by…
a signal detected greater than chance guessing
what are the pairs of opponent-processing colors
black/white
red/green
yellow/blue
in vision, where does transduction process take place?
Rods and Cones
If you want to see a planet in the night sky, you:
Look off to the side, using the rods in the periphery for the dim object (wrong)
