Unit 3 Flashcards
sensation
The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.
sensory receptors
Nerve endings that respond to stimuli, and detect information after which the nervous system transmits this information to the brain.
perception
The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.
Bottom-up processing
The process that begins with individual pieces of data and works its way “up” to construct a theory or conclusion. This often occurs when we process things for which we have no prior knowledge.
Top-down processing
The process that constructs perceptions based on sensory experience and expectations. This occurs by drawing on prior knowledge.
Selective attention
The focussing of our conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. Through selective attention, our awareness focusses on a minute aspect of all that we experience.
Cocktail Party Effect
The ability to attend to one of several speech streams while ignoring others, as when one is at a cocktail party.
The Stroop Effect
The delay in reaction time between congruent and incongruent stimuli. For example, the time it takes a participant to name the colour of ink in which a word is printed is longer for words that denote incongruent colour names than for neutral words or for words that denote a congruent colour.
inattentional blindness
Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.
inattentional deafness
The failure of unattended auditory stimuli to register in the consciousness.
change blindness
A phenomenon of visual perception that occurs when a stimulus undergoes a change without this being noticed by its observer.
change deafness
A phenomenon of auditory perception occurs when a stimulus undergoes a change without this being noticed by its observer.
pop-out effect
One or more basic features will mark a stimulus as distinct from the other stimuli, hence allowing the target to be easily detected and identified regardless of the number of distractors.
choice blindness
The inability to detect a change between an object/image we have chosen and a similar object/image.
transduction
The conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret.
psychophysics
The study of the relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli - their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.
absolute threshold
The minimum stimulation (stimulus energy) necessary to detect a particular stimulus (light, sound, pressure, taste, or odour) 50 percent of the time.
signal detection theory
The theory that predicts how and when we can detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid background stimulation (noise). This theory assumes that there is no single absolute threshold, but rather that detection depends on one’s psychological state.
subliminal
Below one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness.
priming
The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one’s perception, memory, or response.
difference threshold (just noticeable difference- JND)
The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference (JND). The detectable difference increases with the size of the stimulus.
Weber’s Law
For an average person to perceive a difference, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (not a constant amount). The exact percentage varies depending on the stimulus.
habituation
The tendency of the brain to stop attending to constant, unchanging information.
dehabituation
The opposite of habituation, which is the reappearance of the initial response to an original stimulus once the stimulus changes.
sensory adaptation
A process by which constant, unchanging information from the sensory receptors is effectively ignored because the receptor cells themselves become less responsive to an unchanging stimulus and the receptors no longer send signals to the brain.
microsaccades (saccadic movements)
A constant movement of the eyes through tiny little vibrations.
Gustav Fechner
The founder of psychophysics. He studied the edge of sensory awareness which he referred to as absolute threshold.
Ernst Weber
Came up with the principle now known as Weber’s Law
perceptual set
A mental predisposition to perceive one thing over another. In other words, it is a set of mental tendencies or assumptions that affect, top-down, what we hear, taste, feel, and see.
perceptual schema
A schema is a mental model that provides a frame for interpreting information entering the mind through the senses or for activating an expectation of how a particular perceptual scene may look. They allow us to organize and allow us to interpret unfamiliar information.
context
Context refers to the situation or circumstances in which an event occurs.
context effect
Context effect is an aspect of psychology that describes the influence of environmental factors on one’s perception of a stimulus. The impact of context effects is considered to be part of top-down processing.
motivation
Motivation is the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviours. Motivation involves the biological, emotional, social, and cognitive forces that activate behaviour.
emotion
Emotions are psychological states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure.
extrasensory perception (ESP)
ESP is the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; it includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.
telepathy
Telepathy is mind-to-mind communication
clairvoyance
Clairvoyance is perceiving remote events, such as a house on fire in another location.
precognition
Precognition is perceiving future events such as an unexpected death in the next month.
psychokinesis (telekinesis)
Psychokinesis (also known as telekinesis) is the idea of “mind over matter” such as being able to levitate a table.
parapsychology
Parapsychology is the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis.
wavelength
A wavelength is the distance between successive peaks in a wave.
frequency
Frequency is the number of complete wavelengths that can pass a point in a given time.
amplitude
The amplitude of a wavelength is its height.
hue
Hue is the dimension of colour that we experience - red green blue etc…. The hue is determined by the wavelength of light. The shorter wavelengths give the purple and blue end of the spectrum. The longer wavelengths give the red end of the spectrum.
intensity
Intensity is the amount of energy in a light wave, which influences what is perceived as brightness. The intensity is determined by the wave’s amplitude.
cornea
The eye’s clear, protective outer layer, covering the pupil and iris.
pupil
The adjustable opening in the centre of the eye through which light enters.
iris
A ring of muscle tissue that forms the coloured portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening.
retina
The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the process of visual information.
fovea centralis
A small depression in the retina of the eye where visual acuity is highest. The centre of the field of vision is focused in this region, where retinal cones are particularly concentrated.
optic nerve
It carries sensory nerve impulses from the more than one million ganglion cells of the retina toward the visual centres in the brain.
blind spot
A spot where there are no receptor cells because this is where the optic nerve is leaving the eye. However, we don’t see a black hole created by this blind spot because our brain automatically fills it in.
accommodation
The process of the lens changing its curvature and thickness in order for the lens to focus the light rays.
myopia
if the lens focusses the image on a point in front of the retina, one sees near objects but not distant objects. This is also known as nearsightedness.
rods
A type of retinal receptor cell that detects black, white, and grey, and is sensitive to movement. They are necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don’t respond. A human retina has about 120 million rods.