Sense and Perception Flashcards
What is sensation?
detection of physical stimuli by a sense organ
What is perception?
how we interpret, organzae, and identify the sensation from our sense organ
What are the 5 tranditional senses?
vision, audition (hearing), olfaction (smell), gustation (taste), tactician (touch)
What are the nontraditional senses?
nociception (pain), proprioception (body movement/ position), interoception (internal states like thirst or hunger)
What are the specialized cense receptors for touch and body senses?
touch receptors (cells sensitive to different types of touch)
What are the specialized sense receptors for proprioception?
- sensors in muscles and joints for body location
- semi-circular canal (balance and motion)
What are the specialized sense receptors for olfaction?
- olfactory receptors (cells in nasal cavity sensitive to different types of molecules
What are the specialized sense receptors for gustation?
- taste buds (structure with many chemical receptors to detect taste)
What is absolute threshold?
the minimum stimulus strength which can be detected 50% of the time
What is difference threshold?
the minimum difference between two stimuli which can be detected half of the time
What is sensory adaptation? Give an example.
- prolonged exposure to stimuli inhibits our perception of it
- Ex: you don’t feel your after having it on for a while unless your attention is drawn to it
What is the cornea?
the outer layer of the eye which acs as a lense
What is the iris?
a set of muscles which determine the size of the pupil
What is the pupil?
an opening in the iris which allows for light to enter the eye
What is the lens of an eye?
a flexible lens structure which focuses light onto the retna
What is the retina?
a layer of tissue line with light sensitive cells
What is the fovea of the eye?
the area of the retina where light is focused
What is the optic nerve?
a set of nerves carrying signals to an from the brain from the retina
What is the optic disc?
the location where the optic nerve connects to retine (blind spot)
What is accommidation?
the process by which the lens changes shape to focus the incoming lights os that the light falls on the retina
What are eye rods? When do they dominate vision? Where are they found?
- photo receptors that’re sensitive to light intensity
- dominate vision in low light
- found everywhere but the fovea
What are cones? where are they concentrated, what are the important for/ what they require more of?
- photo receptors sensitive to specific wavelengths of light
- concentrated in fovea
- important for visual acuity
- requires more light
What is a retinal ganglion cell? What do they process?
- neurons which receive inputs from groups of photo receptors
- initial visual processing
Compare and Contrast visual rods and cones
- Cones are sensitive to specific wavelengths of light, rods are sensitive to light intensity
- rods are everywhere in the eye but the fovea, rods are everywhere in the eye and concentrated in the fovea
- rods give more visual input than cones
What is the ventral stream? What does it process?
- The “what pathway?
- processes what something is
- from the V1 towards the temporal lobe
What is the dorsal stream? What does it process?
- the “where” pathway
- processes info about how something is used visually
- V1 area towards the parietal lobe
- makes visual connections with spacial information
How does wavelength determine visual perception?
determines color perception
What part of visual perception does amplitude determine?
brightness
How does saturation/ purity of a wavelength affect visual perception?
a more pure wavelength makes something look more “pure” visually
What is Trichromatic theory? What can it explain?
- the theory that different cones are sensitive to different spectrums of light
- explains color-blindness
What is the opponent process theory? What does it explain?
- the theory that color perception is the subtraction of missing color
- explains after-images
What are cortical receptive fields?
the place where most basic shapes and orientations are processed in the posterior occipital lobe
How does amplitude affect sound perception?
effects its loudness or intensity
What is pitch determined by?
frequency of vibration
(high frequency = high pitch, low frequency = low pitch)
What is timbre?
the distinctive qualities of a sound (purity for douns)
What does the outer ear do? What are its parts?
- funnels sound to the middle ear
- made of the Pinna and auditory canal
Pinna - cartilage structures on the outside of the ear
Auditory canal - channel sound from outside of the skull leading in
What does the middle ear do? What are its parts and what do they do?
- transfers sound to the inner ear
Tympanic membrane (eardrum) - soundwaves strike and vibrate the membrane
Ossicles - transfers vibrations from eardrum to inner ear
What does the inner ear do? What are its parts?
- transduces sound
Oval window - membrane on cholera contracting the ossicles
Cochlear- coiled structure that’s filled with fluid
What are the cochlear structures and what do they do?
- cochlear fluid - moves due to the vibration of the oval window
- basilar membrane - flexible membrane lines with cilia
- Tectorial membrane - tips of cilia contract
- cilia - hair cells connected to basilar and tectoral membrane
