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Sensation/Perception
Vocabulary for Theme 3b
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Sensation | What occurs when a stimulus activates a receptor. |
Perception | The organization of sensory information into meaningful experiences. |
Psychophysics | The study of the relationships between sensory experiences and the physical stimuli that cause them. |
Absolute Threshold | The weakest amount of a stimulus that a person can detect half the time. |
Difference Threshold | The smallest change in a physical stimulus that can be detected between two stimuli. |
Weber's Law | The principle that for any change(s) in a stimulus to be detected, a constant proportion of that stimulus(s) must be added or subtracted. |
Signal-detection Theory | The study of people's tendencies to make correct judgements in detecting the presence of a stimuli. |
Pupil | The opening in the iris that regulates the amount of light entering the eye. |
Lens | A flexible, elastic, transparent structure in the eye that changes its shape to focus light in the retina. |
Retina | The innermost coating of the back of the eye, containing the light-sensitive receptor cells. |
Optic Nerve | The nerve that carries impulses from the retina to the brain. |
Binocular Fusion | The process of combining the images received from the two eyes into a single, fused image. |
Retinal Disparity | The differences between the images stimulating each eye. |
Auditory Nerve | The nerve that carries impulses from the inner ear to the brain, resulting in the perception of sound. |
Vestibular System | Three semicircular canals that provide the sense of balance, located in the inner ear and connected to the brain by a nerve. |
Olfactory Nerve | The nerve that carries smell impulses from the nose to the brain. |
Kinesthesis | The sense of body movement and body position. |
Gestalt | The experience that comes from organizing bits and pieces of information into meaningful wholes. |
Subliminal Messages | Brief auditory or visual messages that are presented below the absolute threshold. |
Motion Parallax | The apparent movement of stationary objects relative to one another that occurs when the observer changes position. |
Constancy | The tendency to perceive certain objects in the same way regardless of changing angle, distance, or lighting. |
Illusions | Perceptions that misrepresent physical stimuli. |
Extrasensory Perception | An ability to gain information by some means other than the ordinary senses. |