Unit 4 Flashcards
Sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from the environment
Sensation
Organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events
Perception
Starts with basic sensory information; transduction
Bottom-up processing
Constructing perceptions based on our experiences and expectations
Top-down processing
Discuss how our perceptions are directed and limited by selective attention
Depends on if we get distracted by something or how more important one thing is from another
Study of relationships between physical characteristics of stimuli, and our psychological experience on them
Psychophysics
Failing to notice changes in the environment
Change blindness
Failing to see something when we are distracted
Inattentional blindness
Focusing conscious awareness on a stimulus
Selective attention
Can we sense and be affected by subliminal stimuli?
Yes, the image might be flashed and that could change our response
Could we be affected by unchanging stimuli?
No
Minimum stimulation needed to produce any sensation 50% of the time
Absolute threshold
States that circumstances, experiences, expectations affect our thresholds
Signal detection theory
Below someone’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness
Subliminal
Unconscious activation of certain associations, thus predisposing their memory, response, or perception
Priming
Minimum difference between 2 stimuli required for detection 50% of the time
Difference threshold
To be perceived as different, 2 stimuli must differ by a constant percentage
Weber’s law
Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation
Sensory adaptation
Made a scale of magnitude of stimuli and intensity
Gustav Fechner
Pulses of electromagnetic energy; depends on wavelength, hue, and intensity
Visible light
Conversion of one form of energy to another
Transduction
Sharpness of vision affected by the eye’s shape
Acuity
What is an example of transduction?
Sensory stimulus energy converts to neural impulses our brains interpret
Distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next
Wavelength
Dimension of color that’s determined by the wavelength of light
Hue
Amount of energy we perceive as brightness or loudness
Intensity
What is the pathway that occur as information travels from the retina to the brain’s cortex?
Rods and cones, bipolar, ganglion cells, optic nerve, thalamus
Opening where light enters
Pupil
Changes shape to control size of pupil opening
Iris
Changes shape to focus image onto retina
Lens
Contains rods and cones to begin processing visual information
Retina
Lens changes shape to focus near or far objects to the retina
Accomidation
Detects black, white, gray colors
Rods
Where are rods located?
Peripheral
Where are cones located?
Fovea
Detects colors and fine details
Cones
Carries impulses from eyes to brain
Optic nerve
Point where optic nerves leave the eye
Blind spot
Central point in retina which cones cluster
Fovea
What is the role of parallel processing in visual information processing?
The brain compares its stored info to the image you see and it enables you to recognize the image.
Neurons in the visual cortex respond to a scene’s special features
Feature detectors
Processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously
Parallel processing
Demonstrated that neurons in the occipital lobe’s visual cortex receive information from individual ganglion cells in the retina
David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel
Retina contains 3 different color receptors and when combined it creates many other colors
Three-color theory/ Young Helmholtz Theory
Opposing retinal processes enable color vision
Opponent process theory
What are the opposing retinal processes?
Blue-yellow, black-white, red-green
Sense or act of hearing
Audition
Number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in given time
Frequency
Tones experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency
Pitch
Chamber between the eardrum and cochlea
Middle ear
Fluid filled tube that sound waves trigger nerve impulses
Cochlea
Contains cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs
Inner ear
Links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea’s membrane is stimulated
Place theory
Place theory is associated with ______ pitch
High
In hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch.
Frequency theory
Frequency theory is associated with ______ pitch
Low
Describe how we pinpoint sounds
2 ears help us to have 3D hearing. If something is coming from the right side, the right ear will hear a more intense sound than the left ear. Sound strikes the ear simultaneously
Damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to cochlea
Conduction hearing loss
Damage to the cochlea’s receptor cells or auditory nerves
Sensorineural hearing loss
How do cochlear implants function?
Translate sounds into electrical signals that convey some information to the brain
Converts sounds to electrical signals and helps to stimulate the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded in the cochlea
Cochlear implants
Why is the sense of touch important?
Can help babies to develop and grow; without sense of touch people/animals may feel more miserable
Senses position and movements of individual body parts
Kinesthesis
Sense of body position and movement including balance
Vestibular sense
What is the purpose of pain?
To sense that something is wrong and to change that behavior
Spinal cord has a neurological gate that can block or pass pain signals
Gate control theory
One sense influences the other
Sensory interaction
Describe Gestalt’s psychology’s contribution to our understanding of perception
How we integrate pieces of information to make it a whole
What are some principles of perceptual grouping in form perception?
Proximity, similarity, continuity, connectedness, closure
An organized whole; integrating information to meaningful wholes
Gestalt
Organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surrounding
Figure-ground
Tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups
Grouping
Ability to see objects in three dimension although the image that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance
Depth perception
Allows us to test depth perception in babies and young animals
Visual cliff
visual messages/cues that require two eyes (retinal disparity, convergence)
Binocular cues
depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone.
Monocular cues
binocular distance cue; different images in our two eyes receive of the same object
Retinal disparity
Muscles controlling the eye movement as the eyes turned inward to view a nearby stimulus; 2 eyes move inward for near objects
Convergence
Helps us to determine how close objects are to an object of known size
Relative size
If one object partially blocks the view of another, we perceive it as closer
Interposition
Light passes through farther objects making them look hazy and far away
Relative clarity
As surfaces get farther away, the textures look finer
Texture gradient
Perceive objects high in our visual field as being far away
Relative height
While we move, objects that stay still may look as if it is moving
Relative motion
Parallel lines appear to converge with distance
Linear perspective
Nearby objects reflect more light to our eyes
Light and shadow
What is the basic assumption we make in our perceptions of motion
Shrinking objects are retreating while growing objects are approaching
Illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off quickly
Phi phenomenon
Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wave-lengths reflected by the object
Color constancy
Perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change
Perceptual Constancy
Describe the contributions of restored vision, sensory deprivation, and perceptual adaptation to our understanding of nature-nurture
There is a critical period for normal sensory and perceptual development; experience guides and sustains brain development of perception
Ability to adjust artificially to displaced/ inverted visual field
Perceptual adaptation
Explain why the same stimulus can evoke different perceptions in different contexts and different psychological states
Once we have formed a wrong idea about reality, we have a hard time seeing the truth
Mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not the other
Perceptual set
What are the 3 most testable forms of ESP?
Telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition
One person sending thoughts to another or perceiving another’s thoughts
Telepathy
Perceiving future events
Precognition
Sensing something is happening
Clairvoyance
What is related to kinesthesis?
Muscles and joints
What is related to vestibular sense?
Semi-circular canals
What are the 4 touch senses?
Warm, cool, pressure, pain
Why do most research psychologists remain skeptical of ESP
Not enough evidence in a research setting
What are the binocular cues?
Convergence, retinal disparity
What are the monocular cues?
Relative size, relative clarity, interposition, texture gradient, relative motion, linear perspective, light and shadow
What’s the pathway of hearing progressions?
Auditory canal, eardrum, middle ear, cochlea
