Midterm #3
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- Chemosense
- One of two sense modalities (gustation and olfaction) that detect the presence of particular molecules present in the environment
- Cochlea
- A snail-shaped chamber set in the bone in the inner ear, where auditory transduction takes place
- Vestibular apparatus
- The receptive organs of the inner ear that contribute to balance and perception
- Fovea
- A small pit near the centre of the retina containing densely packed cones; responsible for the most acute and detailed vision
- Auditory hair cell
- The sensory neuron of the suditory system; loacted on the basilar membrane
- Olfactory Nucosa
- The mucous membrane lining the top of the nasal sinuses; contains the cilia of the olfactory receptors
- Temporal Coding
- A means by which the nervous system represents information; different features are coded by the pattern of activity of neurons
- Papilla
- A small bump on the tongue that contains a group of tast buds
- Retina
- The tissue at the back inside surface of the eye that contains the photoreceptors and associated neurons
- Opponent Proces
- The representation of colours by the rate of firing of two types of neurons: red/green and yellow/blue
- Muscle Spindle
- A muscle fibre that functions as a stretch receptor; arranged parallel to the muscle fibres responsible for contraction of the muscle, it detects muscle length
- Free Nerve ending
- A dendtrite of somatosensory neurons
- Protanopia
- A form of heredity anomalous colour vison; caused by defectuve "red" cones in the retina
- Hue
- A perceptual dimension of color, most closely realted to the wave-length of a pure light
- Colour Mixing
- The perception of two or more lights of different wavelengths seen together as light of an intermediate wavelength
- Phantom Limb
- Sensations that appear to originate in a limb that has been amputated
- Bipolar Cell
- A neuron in the retina that receives information from photoreceptors and passes it on to the ganglion cells, from which axons proceed through the optic nerves to th brain
- Ganglion Cell
- A neuron in the retina that receives information from photoreceptors by means of bipolar cells and from which axons proceeed through the optic nerves to the brain
- Brightness
- A perceptaul dimension of colour, most closely related to the intensity or degree of radiant energy emitted by a visual stimulus
- Lens
- The transparent organ situated behind the iris of the eye; helps focus an image on the retina
- Round Window
- An opening in the bone surrounding the cochlea. Movements of the membrane behind this opening permit vibrations to be transmitted through the oval window into the cochlea
- Two-point discrimination Threshold
- The minimum distance between two small points that can be detected as seperate stimuli when pressed against a particular region of the skin
- Optic disc
- A circular structure located at the exit point from the retina of the axons of the ganglion cells that form the optic nerve
- Subliminal Perception
- The perception of stimulus, as indicated by a change in behaviour, at an intensity insufficient to produce a conscious sensation
- Trianopia
- A form of heredity anamlous colour vision; caused by a lack of "blue" cones in the retina
- Hertz (HZ)
- The primary measure of the frequency of vibration of sound waves; cycles per second
- Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve
- A grraph of hits and false alarms of participants under different motivational conditions; indicates people's ability to detect a particular stimulus
- Harmonic
- A component of a complex tone; one of a series of tones whose frequency is a multiple of the fundamental frequency. In music theory, also known as an overtone
- Conjugate Movement
- The cooperative movement of the eyes, which ensures that the image of an object falls on identical portions of both retinas
- Tectorial membrane
- A membrand loacted above the basilar membrane; serves as a shelf against which the cilia of the auditory hair cells move
- Cilium
- A hairlike appendage of a cell; involved in movement or in transducing sensory information. cilia are found on the receptors in the auditory and vestibular systems
- Ossicle
- One of the three bones of the middle ear ( the hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that transmit acoustical vibrations from the eardrum to the membrane behind the oval window of the cochlea
- Fundamental Frequency
- The lowest, and usually most intense, frequency of a complex sound; most often perceived as the sound's basic pitch
- Signal Detection Theory
- mathematical theory of the detection of stimuli, which involves discriminating a signal from the noise in which it is embedded and which takes into account participants' willingess to report detecting the signal
- Dark Adaption
- The process by which the eye becomes capable of distinguishing dimly illuminated objects after going from a bright areas to a dark one
- Wavelength
- The distance between adjacent waves of radiant energy; in vision, most closely associated with the perceptual dimension of hue
- Pheromones
- Chemicla signals, usually detected by smell or tast, that regulate reproductive and social behaviours between animals
- Somatosense
- Bodily senstations; sensitivity to such stimulus as touch, pain and temperature
- Rod
- A photoreceptor that is vert sensitive to light but cannot detect changes in hue
- Cornea
- The transparent tissue covering the front of the eye
- Perception
- The detection of the more complex properties of a stimulus, including its location and nature; involves learning
- Cone
- A photoreceptor that is responsible for acute daytime vision and for colour perception
- Sensation
- The detection of the elementary properties of a stimulus
- Semicircular Canal
- One of the set of three organs in the inner ear that respond to rotational movements of the head
- Saturation
- A perceptual dimension of colour, most closely associated with purity of a colour
- Basilar Membrane
- One of two membranes that divide the cochlea of the inner ear into three comparments. The recptive organ for audition resides here
- Oval window
- An opening in the bone surrounding that cochlea. The stirrup presses against a membrane behind the oval window and transmits sound vibrations into the fluid with the cochlea
- Negative Afterimage
- The image seen after a portion of the retina is exposed to an intense visual stimulus; afterimage consists of colours complementary to those of the physical stimulus
- Psychophysics
- A branch of psychology that measures the quantitive relation between physical stimuli and perceptual experience
- Transduction
- The conversion of physical stimuli into changes in the activity of receptor cells of sensory organs
- Scelera
- The tough outer layer of the eye; the "white" of the eye
- Difference Threshold
- An alternative name for just-noticeable difference
- Iris
- The pigmented muscles of the eye that controls the size of the pupil
- Weber Fraction
- The ratio between a just-noticeblae difference and the magnitude of a stimulus; reasonably constant over the middle range of most stimulus intensities
- Rhodospin
- The photopigment contained by rods
- Photoreceptor
- A receptive cell for vision in the retina; a rod or a cone
- Threshold
- The point at which a stimulus, or chnage in the value of a stimulus, can be detected
- Pursuit Movement
- The movement that the eyes make to maintain an image of a moving image upon the fovea
- Anatomical Coding
- A means by which the nervous system represents information; different features are coded by the activity of differnt neurons
- Absolute Threshold
- The minimum value of a stimulus that can be detected
- Photopigment
- A complex molecule found in photorecpetors; when struck by light it splits apart and stimulates the membrane of the photoreceptor in which it resides
- Trichromatic Theory
- The theory that olour vision is accomplished by three types of photoreceptors, each of which is maximally sensitive to a different wavelength of light
- Olfactory bulbs
- Stalk-like structures loacted at the base of the brain that contain neural circuits that perform the first analysis of olfactory information
- Gustation
- The sense of taste
- Timbre
- A perceptual dimension of sound, determined by the complexity of the sound-- for example, as shown by a mathematical analysis of the sound wave
- Vestibular sac
- One of the set of two receptor organs in each inner ear that detect changes in the tilt of the head
- Olfaction
- The sense of stimuli
- Deuteranopia
- A form of heredity anamalous colour vision; caused by defective "green" cones in the retina
- Pacinian Corpuscle
- A specialized somatosensory nerve ending, which detects mechanical stimuli, especialy vibrations
- Saccadic Movement
- The rapid eye movement of the yes that is used in scannign a visual scene, as opposed to the smooth pursuit movements used to follow a moving object
- Taste Bud
- A small organ on the tongue that contains a group of gustatory receptor cells
- Just-noticeable Difference
- The smallest difference between two similar stimuli that can be distinguished. Also called difference threshold
- Accommodation
- Changes in the thickness of the lens of the eyes that focus images of near or distant objects on the retina
- Receptor Cell
- A neuron that directly responds to a physical stimulus, such as light,vibrations or aromatic molecules