Sense and Perception

Question 1

What is sensation?

Answer 1

detection of physical stimuli by a sense organ

Question 2

What is perception?

Answer 2

how we interpret, organzae, and identify the sensation from our sense organ

Question 3

What are the 5 tranditional senses?

Answer 3

vision, audition (hearing), olfaction (smell), gustation (taste), tactician (touch)

Question 4

What are the nontraditional senses?

Answer 4

nociception (pain), proprioception (body movement/ position), interoception (internal states like thirst or hunger)

Question 5

What are the specialized cense receptors for touch and body senses?

Answer 5

touch receptors (cells sensitive to different types of touch)

Question 6

What are the specialized sense receptors for proprioception?

Answer 6

• sensors in muscles and joints for body location
• semi-circular canal (balance and motion)

Question 7

What are the specialized sense receptors for olfaction?

Answer 7

• olfactory receptors (cells in nasal cavity sensitive to different types of molecules

Question 8

What are the specialized sense receptors for gustation?

Answer 8

• taste buds (structure with many chemical receptors to detect taste)

Question 9

What is absolute threshold?

Answer 9

the minimum stimulus strength which can be detected 50% of the time

Question 10

What is difference threshold?

Answer 10

the minimum difference between two stimuli which can be detected half of the time

Question 11

What is sensory adaptation? Give an example.

Answer 11

• 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

Question 12

What is the cornea?

Answer 12

the outer layer of the eye which acs as a lense

Question 13

What is the iris?

Answer 13

a set of muscles which determine the size of the pupil

Question 14

What is the pupil?

Answer 14

an opening in the iris which allows for light to enter the eye

Question 15

What is the lens of an eye?

Answer 15

a flexible lens structure which focuses light onto the retna

Question 16

What is the retina?

Answer 16

a layer of tissue line with light sensitive cells

Question 17

What is the fovea of the eye?

Answer 17

the area of the retina where light is focused

Question 18

What is the optic nerve?

Answer 18

a set of nerves carrying signals to an from the brain from the retina

Question 19

What is the optic disc?

Answer 19

the location where the optic nerve connects to retine (blind spot)

Question 20

What is accommidation?

Answer 20

the process by which the lens changes shape to focus the incoming lights os that the light falls on the retina

Question 21

What are eye rods? When do they dominate vision? Where are they found?

Answer 21

• photo receptors that’re sensitive to light intensity
• dominate vision in low light
• found everywhere but the fovea

Question 22

What are cones? where are they concentrated, what are the important for/ what they require more of?

Answer 22

• photo receptors sensitive to specific wavelengths of light
• concentrated in fovea
• important for visual acuity
• requires more light

Question 23

What is a retinal ganglion cell? What do they process?

Answer 23

• neurons which receive inputs from groups of photo receptors
• initial visual processing

Question 24

Compare and Contrast visual rods and cones

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

What is the ventral stream? What does it process?

Answer 25

• The “what pathway?
• processes what something is
• from the V1 towards the temporal lobe

Question 26

What is the dorsal stream? What does it process?

Answer 26

• the “where” pathway
• processes info about how something is used visually
• V1 area towards the parietal lobe
• makes visual connections with spacial information

Question 27

How does wavelength determine visual perception?

Answer 27

determines color perception

Question 28

What part of visual perception does amplitude determine?

Answer 28

brightness

Question 29

How does saturation/ purity of a wavelength affect visual perception?

Answer 29

a more pure wavelength makes something look more “pure” visually

Question 30

What is Trichromatic theory? What can it explain?

Answer 30

• the theory that different cones are sensitive to different spectrums of light
• explains color-blindness

Question 31

What is the opponent process theory? What does it explain?

Answer 31

• the theory that color perception is the subtraction of missing color
• explains after-images

Question 32

What are cortical receptive fields?

Answer 32

the place where most basic shapes and orientations are processed in the posterior occipital lobe

Question 33

How does amplitude affect sound perception?

Answer 33

effects its loudness or intensity

Question 34

What is pitch determined by?

Answer 34

frequency of vibration
(high frequency = high pitch, low frequency = low pitch)

Question 35

What is timbre?

Answer 35

the distinctive qualities of a sound (purity for douns)

Question 36

What does the outer ear do? What are its parts?

Answer 36

• 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

Question 37

What does the middle ear do? What are its parts and what do they do?

Answer 37

• transfers sound to the inner ear
  Tympanic membrane (eardrum) - soundwaves strike and vibrate the membrane
  Ossicles - transfers vibrations from eardrum to inner ear

Question 38

What does the inner ear do? What are its parts?

Answer 38

• transduces sound
  Oval window - membrane on cholera contracting the ossicles
  Cochlear- coiled structure that’s filled with fluid

Question 39

What are the cochlear structures and what do they do?

Answer 39

• 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