Chapter 5 & 6 Test
Terms
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- Sensation
- When we detect physical energy from the environment and encode it as neural signals
- Perception
- When we select, organize,and interpret our sensations
- Bottom- up processing
- Analysis that begins with the sense receptors ans works up tothe brain's integration of sensory information.
- Top- down processing
- Information processing guided by higher level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.
- Psychophysics
- The study of relationship between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.
- Absolute Thresholds
- The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.
- Signal Detection Theory
- A theory predicting how and when we detct the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Signal detection theorists seek to understand why people respond differently to the same stimuli and why the same person's reaction vary as circumstances change.
- Subliminal
- Below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness
- Difference Thresholds
- The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. We experience difference threshold as a just noticeable difference (jnd). It increases with the magnitude of the stimulus. An example is if you add 10 grams to a 100 gram weight, you will recognize the difference. Add 10 grams to a 1 kg weight and you will not, because the difference threshold has increased.
- Weber's Law
- The principle that to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount). Weber's principle: our thresholds for detecting differences are a roughly constant proportion of the size of the original stimulus.
- Sensory Adaptation
- Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation. Although sensory adaptation reduces our sensitivity, it enables us to focus on informative changes in our environment without being distracted by the uninformative constant stimulation of garments ,odors, and street noise.
- Transduction
- Conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies into neural impulses.
- Wavelength
- The distance from the peak of one light or soundwave to the peak of the next.
- Hue
- The dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, and so forth
- Intensity
- The amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude.
- Pupil
- The adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters
- Iris
- A ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of theeye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening. It adjusts light intake by dilating and constricting in response to light intensity and even to inner emotions.
- Lens
- The transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina.
- Accomodation
- the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to help focus images on the retina.
- Retina
- The light sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information.
- Acuity
- the sharpness of vision
- Nearsightedness
- A condition in which nearby objects are seen more clearly than distant objects because distant objects focus in front of the retina.
- Farsightedness
- A condition in which faraway objects are seen more clearly than near objects because the image of near objects is focused behind the retina.
- Rods
- Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond
- Cones
- Receptor cells that re-concentrated near the center of the retina that is responsible for daylight and color vision. The cones detect fine detail and give rise to color senstations. Unlike rods, many cones have their own bipolar cells to help relay their individual messages to the cortex, which devotes a large amount of its area to impulses from the fovea.
- Optic Nerve
- The nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain.
- Blind Spot
- The point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because no receptor cells are located there.
- Fovea
- The central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cone's cluster. Contains only cones, no rods.
- Feature detectors
- nerve cells in the brain that responds to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle or movement. Passes info to other cells that respond only to more complex patterns. The visual cortex passes this info along to the temporal and parietal cortex. One temporal lobe area just behind your right ear enables you to perceive faces.
- Parallel Processing
- The processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision.
- Young Helmhoitz Trichromatic Theory
- the theory that the retina contains three different color receptors- one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue- which when stimulated in combination can produce the perception of any color.
- Opponent process theory
- the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision. For example, some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red. This process explains afterimages.
- Color Constancy
- perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alter the wavelengths reflected by the object.
- Audition
- The sense of hearing.
- Frequency
- The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time
- Pitch
- a tone's highness or lowness; depends on frequency.
- Middle Ear
- The space between the eardrum and the inner ear that contains the three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) which convey vibrations through the oval window to the cochlea
- Inner Ear
- the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs.
- Cochlea
- a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.
- Place Theory
- In hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cchlea's membrane is stimulated.
- Frequency Theory
- in hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses travelling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense it's pitch
- Conduction hearing loss
- hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea. If the eardrum is punctured, the ear's ability to conduct vibrations diminishes.
- Sensorineural hearing loss
- hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or tothe auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness.
- Gate Control Theory
- the theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "Gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on the brain. The "gate" is opened by the activity of the pain signals travelling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain.
- Sensory Interaction
- the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences it's taste.
- Kinesthesis
- the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts
- Vestibular sense
- the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance.
- Selective Attention
- the focusing of conscious awareness on a particluar stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect. Examples include the ability to attend selectively to only one voice among many (the cocktail party effect), and blocking awareness coming from the peripheral vision while staring at something.
- Visual Capture
- The tendency for vision to dominate the other senses.
- Gestalt
- An organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasize our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.
- Figure- ground
- The organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground).
- Grouping
- the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups
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Proximity
*Grouping - we group nearby figures together. We see not six separate line, bu three sets of two lines.
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Similarity
*Grouping - Figures similar to each other we group together. We see the triangles and circles as vertical columns of similar shapes not as horizontal rows of dissimilar.
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Continuity
*Grouping - we perceive smooth, continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones. This pattern could be a series of alternating semicircles ,but we perceive it as two continuous lines- one wavy, one straight.
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Connectedness
*Grouping - when they are uniform and linked, we perceive spots, lines, or areas as a single unit
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Closure
*Grouping - we fill ingaps to create a complete, whole object
- Depth Perception
- the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two dimensional; allows us to judge distance.
- Visual cliff
- a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.
- Binocular Cues
- depth cues such as a retinal disparity and convergence ,that depends on the use of two eyes.
- Monocular Cues
- distance cues, such as linear perspective and overlap, available to either eye alone.
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Relative Size
*Monocular cues - if we assume that wo objects are similar in size ,we perceive the one that casts the smaller retinal image as farther away
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Interposition
*Monocular Cues - if one object partially blocks our view of another, we perceive it as closer.
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Relative Clarity
*Monocular Cues - because light from idtant objects passes through more atmosphere, we perceive hazy objects as farther away than sharp, clear objects.
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Texture gradient
*Monocular Cues - A gradual change from a coarse, distinct texture to a fine indistinct texture signals increasing distance. Objects far away appear smaller and more densely packed.
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Relative Height
*Monocular Cues - we perceive objecs higher in our field of vision as farther away. Because we perceive the lower part of a figure ground illustration as closer, we perceive it as a figure.
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Relative motion (motion parallax)
*Monocular Cues - as we move, objects that are actually stable may appear to move. The nearer an object is, the faster it seems to move.
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Linear Perspective
*Monocular Cues - parallel lines, such as railroad tracks, appear to converge with distance .The more the lines converge, the greater their perceived distance.
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Light and Shadow
*Monocular Cues - nearby objects reflect more light to our eyes. Thus, given two identical objects, the dimmer one seems farther away. This illusion can also contribute to accidents, as whe na fog shrouded vehicle.
- Retinal Disparity
- A binocular cue for perceiving depth: By comparing images from the two eyeballs, the brain computes distance- the greater the difference between two images, the closer the object.
- Convergence
- a binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object. The more inward strain, the close the object.
- Phi Phenomenon
- an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and offi n succession. Marquees and holiday lights create an illusion of movement using this.
- Perceptual Constancy
- perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change.
- The Muller- Lyer Illusion
- Richard L. Gregory suggested that the corners in our rectangularly carpentered world teach us to interpret "outward" or "inward" pointing arrowheads at the ends of a line as a cue to the line's distance from us and so to it's length.
- Perceptual adaptation
- in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.
- Perceptual set
- a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.
- Human factors psychology
- a branch of psychology that explores how people and machines interacts and how machines and physical environments can be adapated to human behaviors.
- Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
- the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensor yinput. Said to include telepathy (mind to mind communication) clairvoyance (perceiving remote events such as sensing that a friend's house is on fire) and precognition (perceiving future events, such as a political leader's death or a sporting event's outcome)
- Psychokinesis
- mind over matter, such as levitating a table or influencing the roll of a die.
- Parapsychology
- the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis.
- Critical period
- an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development.
- Ganzfeld procedure
- Hoping to detect faint telepathy signals, some parapsychologists use sensory deprivation to minimize distractions.