Week 7 Flashcards
What is the sensory system’s job?
It is the sensory system’s job to measure and transmit all different kinds of information, from visual, to auditory, to chemical, to physical.
What is transduction?
Transduction is converting outside information into action potentials.
What is sensation?
Sensation: process of gathering information through our senses
What is perception?
Perception: organize and understand the information taken in by our senses.
What is the basic process of sensation?
An external stimulus, a physiological response of receptor cells to the stimulus, then the cognitive analysis/ understanding of the stimulus.
Why do we have a sensory filter/gate?
Too much information could be overwhelming, which is why we sense only a limited spectrum of the world around us.
What is sensory adaptation?
Sensory adaptation is when the environment is static, senses tend to reset themselves to match this new static state, because this maximizes the chances of detecting a change in the environment.
What is sensory fatigue?
Sensory fatigue is when the senses typically adapt to being constantly presented with a stimulus by firing less often.
What is absolute threshold?
Absolute threshold is the smallest amount of stimulus that can be detected, different for different senses.
What is signal detection theory?
Signal detection theory focuses on the response bias of observers. That is, the motivation to find a signal versus the motivation to avoid making a mistake. (identifying a signal when there isn’t one).
How are observers’ responses categorized?
Hit (correctly detecting a stimulus), miss (miss a stimulus), false alarm (false hit when there isn’t a stimulus), and correct rejection (knowing that no stimulus is there).
What is psychophysics?
Psychophysics studies the relationship between an external stimulus and the perceptual experience that it evokes in the mind.
What are the common goals of psychophysics?
Determine the absolute threshold of each sense.
What was the minimum difference between two stimuli in order to detect a change called?
Just noticeable difference or difference threshold
What is Weber’s fraction?
Just noticeable difference (jnd)/ original intensity
What is Weber’s law?
It suggests that the noticeable difference between two stimuli is proportional to the magnitude of the stimuli. The larger the stimuli, the larger the change needed for a person to perceive the difference. Weber’s Law can be applied to all sensory experiences.
What is transduction?
Transduction is the process whereby external stimuli are turned into a biochemical signal that the brain can understand. This involves turning sensory inputs into action potentials, which are then transmitted to the brain for interpretation.
What is quantitative?
Quantitative is related to the amount of energy in a sensory stimulus (high decibel/loudness vs low decibel/ loudness)
What is qualitative?
Qualitative is related to the kind of energy in a sensory stimulus (high frequency/pitch vs low frequency/pitch)
How is the coding of quantity determined?
The coding of quantity is determined by the rate of action potentials (more energy= more potentials= temporal coding)
How is the coding quality determined?
The coding quality is determined by the specific receptors that are activated.
What is Aphasia?
Difficulty with language
What is Agnosia?
Loss of ability to perceive stimuli
What is anosmia?
Loss of ability to smell
What is prosopagnosia?
Inability to recognize familiar faces
