Unit 3 Review Flashcards
Process by which we detect physical energy from the environment and encode it as neural signals:
Sensation
Process by which the brain organizes and interprets sensory information:
Perception
Analysis begins with the sense receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information:
Bottom-Up Processing
Information processing guided by higher-level mental proecesses:
Top-Down Processing
Study of relationships between physical characteristics of stimuli and our psychological experience of them:
Psychophysics
Minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time:
Absolute Threshold
Explains precisely how and when we detect the presence of faint stimulus/signal:
Signal Detection Theory
One that is below the absolute threshold:
Subliminal Stimulus
Minimum difference between 2 stimuli that a subject can detect the difference between the two stimuli:
Difference Threshold
States that the just noticeable difference between 2 stimuli is a constant minimum percentage of the stimulus:
Weber’s Law
Decreased sensitivity that occurs with continued exposure to an unchanging stimulus:
Sensory Adaptation
Our perceptions of our sense depend on how focused we are on them:
Sensory Habituation
Asking people to identify the color of the word rather than read what the word says:
Stroop Effect
Process by which receptor cells in the eye, ear, skin, and nose convert environmental stimuli into neural impulse:
Transduction
The color we experience, comes in the basic colors of red, green. or blue:
Hue
Distance from one peak of one light/sound to the next; gives rise to the perceptual experiences of hue (color) and pitch (sound):
Wavelength
Determined by amplitude of waves; any sound that exceeds 85 decibels in amplitude/intensity will damage the auditory system:
Intensity
Transparent structure that covers the front of the eye:
Cornea
Adjustable opening in the eye through which light enters:
Pupil
Ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored part of the eye and controls the diameter of the pupil:
Iris
Transparent structure of the eye behind the pupil that changes shape to focus images on the retina:
Lens
Process by which the lens of the eye changes shape to focus near objects on the retina:
Accomodation
Light-sensitive, multilayer, inner surface of the eye that contains the rods and cones as well as neurons that form the beginning of the optic nerve:
Retina
The central point of focus in the retina around which the eye’s cones cluster:
Fovea
Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and grey; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision when the cones don’t respond:
Rods
Retinal receptors that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight/well-lit conditions; detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations:
Cones
Carry neural impulses from eye to brain:
Optic Nerve
Place in the brain where the fibers from each optic nerve cross into the opposite side of the brain:
Optic Chiasm
Region of retina where optic nerves leaves the eye; no rods or cones are in this area = no vision:
Blind Spot
Reflexive, rapid movement from side to side that keeps neurons firing and helps to fill in missing information created by the blind spot:
Saccade
Sharpness of vision:
Acuity
Condition in which nearby objects are seen clearly but distance objects are blurred:
Nearsightedness
Condition in which distant objects are seen clearly but nearby objects are blurred:
Farsightedness
Located in visual cortex of the brain; nerve cells that selectively respond to specific visual features such as movement, shape, or angle:
Feature Detectors
Information processing in which several aspects of a stimulus are processed simultaneously:
Parallel Processing
Retina contains red, green, and blue-sensitive color receptors that can produce the perception of any color:
Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory
Color vision depends on pairs of opposing retinal processes in the brain:
Opponent-Process Theory
Perception that familiar objects have consistent color despite changes in illumination that shift the wavelengths they reflect:
Color Constancy
Sense of hearing:
Audition
A sound that is determined by its frequency or number of complete wavelengths that can pass a point in time:
Pitch
Affects loudness meaning how much pressure is being forced through the air:
Amplitude
Number of wavelength cycles in a unit of time:
Frequency
Funky shaped outer ear:
Pinna
Used to catch sound and direct it into the ear:
Auditory Canal
Vibrates when sound waves hit:
Tympanic Membrane/Eardrum
Chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing the ossicle that concentrate the eardrum’s vibrations on the cochlea’s oval window:
Middle Ear
Contains the semicircular canals and the cochlea, which includes the receptors that transduce sound energy into neural impulses; also contains the vestibular sac (balance):
Inner Ear
Coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube of the inner ear where the transduction of sound waves into neural impulses occur:
Cochlea
Inner surface of the cochlea that resonates the different sounds in different locations:
Basilar Membrane
Covers the basilar membrane and when the fluid of the cochlea moves, the hair cells move to send signals to the basilar membrane and on the auditory nerve:
Organ of Corti/Hair Cells
States we hear different pitches because sound waves of various frequencies trigger activity at different places on the cochlea’s basilar membrane:
Place Theory
Presumes that the rate/frequency of nerve impulses in the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, enabling us to sense its pitch:
Frequency Theory
Hearing loss caused by damage in the mechanics of the outer/middle ear, which impairs the conduction of sound to the cochlea:
Conduction Hearing Loss
Nerve deafness; hearing loss caused by damage to the auditory receptors of the cochlea:
Sensorineural Hearing Loss
An illusion when the auditory component of one sound is paired with the visual component of another sound leading to a third sound:
McGurk Effect
Sense of smell:
Olfaction
Sense of taste:
Gustation
Maintains that a “gate” in the spinal cord determines whether pain signals are permitted to reach the brain:
Gate-Control Theory
Principle that one sense may infleunce another:
Sensory Interaction
Influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments:
Embodied Cognition
Sense of the position and movement of the parts of the body with receptors found in the muscles, tendons, and ligaments:
Kinesthesis
Sense of balance, gravity, and acceleration of our heads:
Vestibular Sense
Focusing on conscious awareness on a stimulus out of all of those that we are capable of experiencing:
Selective/Focused Attention
We filter our nearly everything except that voice which is most important to us:
Cocktail Party Effect
Focusing on 2 or more tasks or stimuli:
Divided Attention
Screening out unwanted stimuli because it causes anxiety or feels threatening/thought to be unimportant:
Selective Inattention
Occurs when our focus is directed at one stimulus, leaving us blind to other stimuli:
Inattentional Blindness
Inability to see changes in our environment when our attention is directed elsewhere:
Change Blindness
Tendency for vision to dominate the other sense:
Visual Capture
Organized whole:
Gestalt
The organization of the visual field into two parts; the figure which stands out from its surroundings:
Figure-Ground
Perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups:
Grouping
Ability to see objects in 3D although the image that strike the retina are 2D; allows us to judge distance:
Depth Perception
Laboratory device for testing depth perception:
Visual Cliff
Depth cues that depend on info from both eyes:
Binocular Cues
Differences between the images received by the eyes because of viewing the world from slightly different angles:
Retinal Disparity
Neuromuscular binocular depth cue based on the extent to which the eyes converge when looking at near or distinct objects:
Convergence
Depth cues that depend on information from either eye alone:
Monocular Cues
Parallel lines appear to converge in distance:
Linear Perspective
Blocking of one object by another object:
Interposition
Perceive something farther away as being smaller:
Relative Size
Objects higher in the visual field appear farther:
Relative Height
Clear objects appear closer than blurry or fuzzy objects:
Relative Clarity
Nearby objects reflect more light to our eyes than distant objects:
Light and Shadow
Closer the object is, the clearer the amount of detail:
Texture Gradient
Makes objects closer to us appear to move faster than those farther away:
Motion Parallax
Illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in succession:
Phi Phenomenon
Series of pictures show at a fast rate of speed suggest motion:
Stroboscopic Movement
Perception that objects have consistent lightness, color, shape, and size, even as illumination and retinal images change:
Perceptual Constancy
Our ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field. Given distorting lenses, we perceive things accordingly but soon adjust by learning the relationship between our distorted perceptions and the reality:
Perceptual Adaption
Mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another:
Perceptual Set
Organized body of information or framework that enables us to organize information:
Schema
Explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be adapted to human behaviors; thus increasing safety and productivity:
Human Factors Psychology
Study of psychokinesis and other paranormal forms of interaction between the individual and environment:
Parapsychology
Controversial claim that perception can occur without sensory input:
Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
Mind reading:
Telepathy
Ability to speak with the dead:
Clairvoyance
Ability to foretell the future:
Precognition
Ability to move objects with one’s mind:
Psychokinesis
Studied the relationship between stimuli and sensation:
Gustav Fechner
Discovered feature detectors which are neurons in the visual association cortex that focus on edges, lines, angles, curves, and movements:
David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel
German physician whose study of sensation using strict experimental techniques brought scientific credibility to psychology:
Ernst Weber
