Sensory and Cognition

Question 1

Sensation

Answer 1

The process of information integration in the brain

Question 2

Perception

Answer 2

The interpretation of information in your brain

Question 3

Two Major Camps: Constructivists and Nativists

Answer 3

Construct = perception is molded through life experiences including culture

Nativists = use of existing hardware fosters perceptual development

Question 4

Children: Vision

Answer 4

Working, in color, moving into form perception etc, facial recognition at 2-3 months: sensitive periods whereby if something doesn’t happen, it impedes development

Question 5

Children: Hearing

Answer 5

Working, not quite as developed as older children but up and running, parents

Question 6

Children: Speech

Answer 6

Early differences, phonemes = basic sounds

Question 7

Further Development

Answer 7

Physical abilities characterized into gross and fine motor skills (grasping/pincer)

Question 8

Attention

Answer 8

As we age, attention increases: roughly 2 minutes for every year of age until 20s

Question 9

In Adolescents: Hearing

Answer 9

optimal but…cultural implications, tinnitus, etc

Question 10

In Adolescents: Vision

Answer 10

up to optimal

Question 11

In Adolescents: Taste

Answer 11

growing and can become acquired

Question 12

In Adolescents: Smell

Answer 12

yikes-but not an issue for everyone

Question 13

Adults: Taste

Answer 13

Supertasters

Question 14

Adults: Vision and Perception

Question 15

In Older Adults

Answer 15

General decline-that’s life
- Vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste all slip a bit

Question 16

Affordances

Answer 16

In Eleanor and James Gibson’s ecological theory of perception, characteristics of an object that reveal what it has to offer humans and how it might be used by them.

Question 17

Visual Acuity

Answer 17

The ability to perceive detail in a visual stimulus.

Question 18

Visual Accomdation

Answer 18

The ability of the lens of the eye to change shape to bring objects at different distances into focus.

Question 19

Habituation

Answer 19

A simple form of learning that involves learning not to respond to a repeated stimulus; learning to be bored by the familiar.

Question 20

Form Perception

Answer 20

In visual perception, recognition of the patterns that constitute an object.

Question 21

Contour

Answer 21

The amount of light-dark transition or boundary area in a visual stimulus.

Question 22

Size Constancy

Answer 22

The tendency to perceive an object as the same size despite changes in its distance from the eyes.

Question 23

Visual Cliff

Answer 23

An elevated glass platform that creates an illusion of depth and is used to test the depth perception of infants.

Question 24

Intuitive theories

Answer 24

Organized systems of knowledge, believed to be innate, that allow children to make sense of the world in areas such as physics and psychology.

Question 25

Phoneme

Answer 25

One of the basic units of sound used in a particular spoken language.

Question 26

Evoked Potentials

Answer 26

Electrical activity in the brain, as measured through electrodes attached to the surface of the skull, in response to various stimuli; used to study infant perception.

Question 27

Cochlear Implant

Answer 27

A surgically implanted amplification device that stimulates the auditory nerve to provide the sensation of hearing to a deaf individual.

Question 28

Olfaction

Answer 28

The sense of smell, made possible by sensory receptors in the nasal passage that react to chemical molecules in the air

Question 29

Somaesthetic senses

Answer 29

Body senses, including the senses of touch, temperature, and pain, as well as the kinesthetic sense of where one’s body parts are in relation to other body parts and to the environment.

Question 30

Sensitive Period

Answer 30

As compared to a critical period, a period of life during which the developing individual is especially susceptible to the effects of experience or has an especially high level of plasticity.

Question 31

Cataract

Answer 31

A pathologic condition of the eye involving opacification (clouding) of the lens that can impair vision or cause blindness

Question 32

The sleeper effect

Answer 32

The delayed effect of an earlier experience, for example, the effect of early deprivation of visual stimulation.

Question 33

Gross motor skills

Answer 33

Skills that involve large muscles and whole-body or limb movements (e.g., kicking the legs or drawing large circles). Contrast with fine motor skills.

Question 34

Fine motor skills

Answer 34

Skills that involve precise movements of the hands and fingers or feet and toes. Contrast with gross motor skills

Question 35

Ulnar grasp

Answer 35

Holding objects by clamping them between the palm of the hand and the fingers.

Question 36

Pincer grasp

Answer 36

A grasp in which the thumb is used in opposition to the fingers, enabling an infant to become more dexterous at lifting and manipulating objects.

Question 37

Dynamic systems theory

Answer 37

A perspective on development that, when applied to motor development, proposes that more sophisticated patterns of motor behavior emerge over time through a “self-organizing” process in which children modify their motor behavior in adaptive ways on the basis of the sensory feedback they receive when they try different movements.

Question 38

Cross-modal perception

Answer 38

The ability to use one sensory modality to identify a stimulus or a pattern of stimuli already familiar through another modality.

Question 39

Attention

Answer 39

Focusing perception and cognition on something in particular.

Question 40

Orienting system

Answer 40

An attentional system that reacts to events in the environment;

Question 41

Focusing system

Answer 41

Attentional system that deliberately seeks out and maintains attention to events.

Question 42

Selective attention

Answer 42

Deliberately concentrating on one thing and ignoring something else.

Question 43

Multitasking

Answer 43

Attending to and performing two or more tasks at the same time.

Question 44

Tinnitus

Answer 44

Condition caused by exposure to high noise levels that involves ringing sounds in one or both ears and that can last for days, weeks, or indefinitely.

Question 45

Sensory threshold

Answer 45

The point at which low levels of stimulation can be detected.

Question 46

age-related macular degeneration

Answer 46

Damage to cells in the retina responsible for central vision.

Question 47

Presbycusis

Answer 47

Problems of the aging ear, which commonly involve loss of sensitivity to highfrequency or high-pitched sounds.