Week 3

Question 1

Define: Sensation

Answer 1

the process detecting external events with sense organs and turning those stimuli into neural signals

Question 2

Define: Perception

Answer 2

the process of attending to organizing and interpreting sensations

Question 3

What is transduction?

Answer 3

the process between sensation and perception when specialized receptors transform outside energy into neural impulses

Question 4

What is an absolute threshold regarding stimulus detection?

Answer 4

the minimum amount of energy or quantity of stimulus required for it to be detected at least 50% of the time

Question 5

What is a difference threshold?

Answer 5

the smallest difference between stimuli that can be reliably detected at least 50% of the time

Question 6

What is weber’s law?

Answer 6

states that the noticeable difference between two stimuli changes as proportion to those stimuli

Question 7

Briefly describe Gesalt psychology.

Answer 7

states that the individual parts of an image have little meaning but can be combined to form a significant meaning

Question 8

What is polysomnography?

Answer 8

a set of objective measurements used to examine physiological variables during sleep

Question 9

What is the difference between the photoreceptors rods and cones?

Answer 9

Robs are sensitive to low light and cones are sensitive to different wavelengths

Question 10

What is the trichromatic theory?

Answer 10

the idea that colour vision is determined by three different cone types that are sensitive to short, medium, and long wavelengths of light

Question 11

What is the opponent-process theory?

Answer 11

which states that we perceive colour in their complementary pairs

Question 12

What is the ventral stream?

Answer 12

extends from the visual cortex to the lower end of the temporal lobe and main function is object recognition

Question 13

What is the dorsal stream?

Answer 13

extends from the visual cortex to the lower end of the parietal lobe and facilitates movement and vision

Question 14

What is the psychoanalytic approach to dreaming?

Answer 14

dreams can either be of manifest content (images and stroylines) or latent content (symbolic meaning built of aggression)

Question 15

What is the activation synthesis theory of dreams?

Answer 15

dreams arise from brain activity in the pons organized by the cortex

Question 16

What are the three types and functions of insomnia?

Answer 16

onset: can’t fall asleep, maintenance: cannot return to sleep, and terminal: wake up too early

Question 17

What are the three types and functions of hypnotic suggestion?

Answer 17

ideomotor (preforming actions), challenge (inability to preform actions), and cognitive-perceptual (changing information)

Question 18

What is the dissociation theory?

Answer 18

explains hypnosis as a unique state in which consciousness is divided into two parts: a lower-level system involved with perception and movement and an “executive” system that evaluates and monitors these behaviours

Question 19

What is locked-in syndrome?

Answer 19

a disorder in which the patient is aware and awake but, because of an inability to move his or her body, appears unconscious

Question 20

What does the phrase “doctrine of specific nerve energies” mean?

Answer 20

the idea that different senses are separated in the brain

Question 21

What is signal detection theory?

Answer 21

the idea that a stimulus being perceived depends on individual judgement

Question 22

What is subliminal perception?

Answer 22

information that you receive from your senses that you are not constantly aware of

Question 23

What is priming?

Answer 23

when previous exposure to a stimuli can influence response to the same or different stimuli later on

Question 24

What is top-down processing?

Answer 24

when perceptions are influenced by prior knowledge

Question 25

What is bottom-down processing?

Answer 25

when we gather bits of senses together to achieve a more complex perception

Question 26

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 26

failure to notice obvious events because attention is directed elsewhere

Question 27

What order does light enter the eye in?

Answer 27

cornea, pupil, lens, retina, fovea, ganglion cells, bipolar cells, photoreceptors, optic nerve

Question 28

What is the ratio of cones and rods ganglion cells?

Answer 28

cones: 1 to 1
rodes: 10 to 1

Question 29

What are feature detection cells?

Answer 29

eye cells that respond to certain stimuli such as angles or edges

Question 30

What is prosopagnosia?

Answer 30

face blindness

Question 31

What are binocular depth cues?

Answer 31

distance cues that are based off of combined perspective from both eyes

Question 32

What is retinal disparity?

Answer 32

the difference in the relative position of an object as seen by both eyes

Question 33

What happens during the first stage of sleep?

Answer 33

breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure all decrease as theta waves develop

Question 34

What happens in the second stage of sleep?

Answer 34

sleep spindles and K complexes signal slower waves but with burst of energy

Question 35

What happens during the third stage of sleep?

Answer 35

brain waves become delta waves

Question 36

What happens during the fourth stage of sleep?

Answer 36

deepest sleep in which waking will be difficult

Question 37

What is the order of sleep stages?

Answer 37

1,2,3,4,2,REM,4

Question 38

What is the difference between a vegetative state and a minimally conscious state?

Answer 38

vegetative state - eyes open, sleep-wake cycles, no sign of consciousness
MCS - shows some partial conscious behaviours inconsistently