Unit 4: Sensation and Perception Flashcards
Sensation
The process by which physical energy comes from the environment (vision, hearing gets worse). (sense,taste,smell)
Sensory receptors
Sensory nerve endings responding to stimuli
Perception
Process of organizing and interpreting or gives meaning to sensory information.
Bottom-up processing
Starts with the sensory receptors, but then works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information. Start assigning meaning to different parts, used at a very starting point, not giving hits (Target bag, 1000 peace puzzle no box. What’s the picture? Start at very little info).
Top-down processing
Is info processing by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions showing our experience and expectations. In addition, gives a big hit right away. (ex:people are shown a list of words printed in different colors. They’re then asked to name the ink color, rather than the word itself).
Selective attention
Focus of conscious awareness (Mrs. O talking, focus on the field). Better known as the cocktail party effect. (ex: hearing your name from a big group).
Inattentional blindness
Falling to see visible objects when our attention is elsewhere (ex: counting basketball passes to the team in white, failing to notice a gorilla comes through).
Change blindness
falling to find changes in the environment (ex: giving directions to someone and the person you give directions to changes to someone else and you fail to notice is someone new
Transduction
Conversion of one form of energy to another.
Psychophysics
The subfield of psychology devoted to the study and physical stimuli. It can also be their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.
Absolute threshold
minimum stimulation in your environment for a stimulus to be detected (hearing the song, smelling the smell)
Signal detection theory
Not just a single threshold: Based on experience, expectations predicts also how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). It also states there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person’s experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness.
Subliminal
Under one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness.
Difference threshold
The min difference between two stimuli required for detection.
Weber’s Law
The principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant percentage (compared to a constant amount). (JND)
Sensory adaptation
Getting rid of a sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation (ex: the pool not feeling cold after getting use to it).
Perceptual set
To perceive things a certain way, based on what we see, hear, taste, touch.
Wavelength
The distance from the peak of one light or can be a sound wave to the next peak. Wavelengths in light waves determine the hue (color) and wavelengths in sound waves determine the pitch (sound).
Hue
Color/ wavelength
Intensity
brightness/ amplitude
Cornea
eye’s clear, protective outer layer covering the pupil and iris.
Pupil
Adjustable opening in the center of the eye where light enters.
Iris
The distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the next peak. Wavelengths in light waves determine the hue or (color) and wavelengths in sound waves determine the pitch (sound)
Lens
Transparent structure behind the pupil, also changes shape to focus images on the retina.
Retina
Light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, contains the photo receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that process visual information.