Sensations Flashcards
Bottom-up processing
Processing of information from sensory organs
Forming images from eyes
Sensation
How we receive information about the world around us
Sights sounds touch
Perception
Our complete analysis of information recieved
Perception that you are looking at the sky
Top-down processing
Interprets information using past experiences and your expectations
Knowing from the past that what you are looking at is a ball
Absolute threshold
The minimum amount of stimulation needed to detect a certain stimulus.
The maker of perfume uses this to add or not add certain fragrances and how much.
Difference threshold
The least amount of change that a person can detect.
How long it takes for you to detect the light changing when dimming lights very slowly
Signal detection theory
Formulas or principles that predict how we will detect faint stimulus, and background stimulus.
Thinking you saw a bird when it was an inanimate object
Sensory adaptation
Failing to notice a constant and unchanging stimulus
Getting used to cold water and not noticing it
Selective attention
Focusing on one stimulus and ignore everything else
Getting so caught up in a book that all other sights and sounds disappear
Electromagnetic therapy
Way light enters the eyes and present electromagnetic radiation in environment
The visible light spectrum
Hue
Color of light determined by wave length and light energy
Red or orange colors
Cornea
Clear curved bulge on the front of the eye
Bends light waves
Iris
The colored tissue behind the cornea
Regulates size of pupil
Pupil
Center of the iris, controls amount of light entering the eye
Small to let less light in like when in bright sunlight, and large to let more in like when in the dark
Lens
Transparent structure behind the eye, changes thickness to focus on image
Retina
Processing center at the back of the eye
The film of the camera
Receptor cells
Change light energy into nerve impulses for the brain to interpret
Interpreter for a foreign speaking person
Rods
Detect only black and white and shades of gray
Respond only in dim light and like a night vision
Cones
Detect sharp detail and colors, cluster in the center of the retina
Like the hd effect
Fovea
Center of retina, where vision is the best
Where the cones cluster
Bipolar cells
Cells that form the middle layer in retina
A review that is taken up to be looked at and passed used later
Ganglion cells
Top layer of cells in retina that transmit information from bipolar cells through their axons.
Telephone wire
Optic nerve
Nerve that sends information from eye to occipital lobe in brain
Telephone wire
Blind spot
Where the optic nerve exits the eye due to no cones or rods
Like on a car
Trichromatic theory
Cones tuned to detect blue, red, and green light and that different levels of stimulus create many different combinations of these three colors to create many more different colors from the original three
Like when mixing colors to make more
Opponent process theory
Color is processed in opposite pairs like black and white pair, and light that stimulates one half hides or reduces the other half. Like only seeing one half of the moon and the other being dark
Pitch
The highness or lowness of a sound depending on the frequency
Like singing
Hertz
Number of sound wave peaks per second, or frequency, of a sound wave
Like when glass shatters from singing
Decibel
A measure of the hight of a sound wave which determines loudness of sound
A whisper has low decibel and a fire truck siren has high decibels
Auditory canal
Opening sound waves travel into ear for processing
Metal, unprocessed being put on conveyor belt
Eardrum
Tissue barrier at end of auditory canal transfers sound vibration from air to three tiny bones
Like a drum
Ossicles
Three tiny bones that transfers sound waves from eardrum to cochlea
Like structures that hold up buildings
Cochlea
Snail shaped, bony, fluid filled structure in ear where sound waves are changed to neural impulses
Like a balloon
Oval window
On surface of cochlea receives sound vibrations from three tiny bones
Like the canvas on drum
Hair cells
Receptor cells located in cochlea and change sound waves to neural impulses
Similar to the strings
Auditory nerve
Nerve that carries sound information from ears to temporal lobe of the brain
The strings on a violin
Olfactory cells
Chemical receptor cells for smell, located in nasal passages
Vacuum
Kinesthetic senses
System for sensing position and movement of individual body parts
Like the balancer on phone
Vestibular senses
System for sensing body orientation and balance
Like the balance on the phone
