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Psych Unit 4
Sensation and Perception
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Sensation | The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment. |
| Perception | The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events. |
| Bottom-Up Processing | Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the 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. |
| Selective Attention | The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. |
| Inattentional Blindness | Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere. |
| Change Blindness | Failing to notice changes in the environment. |
| Transduction | Conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret. |
| Psychophysics | The study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them. |
| Absolute Threshold | The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time. |
| Signal Detection Theory | A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience. |
| Subliminal | Below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness. |
| Priming | The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response. |
| Difference Threshold | The minimum difference between 2 stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. |
| Weber's Law | The principle that to be perceived as different two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage. |
| Sensory Adaptation | Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation. |
| Perceptual Set | A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another. |
| Extrasensory Perception (ESP) | The controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input, includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. |
| Parapsychology | The study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis. |
| Wavelength | The distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next. |
| Hue | The dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; What we know as the colors name's blue, green, and so forth |
| Intensity | The amount of energy in a light/sound wave, which we perceive as brightness/loudness as determined by the waves 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 part of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening. |
| Lens | The transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina. |
| Retina | The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones + layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information. |
| Accommodation | The process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects in the retina. |
| Rods | Retinal receptors that detect black, white and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision when cones don't respond. |
| Cones | Retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit. Detects fine details and gives rise to color sensations. |
| 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 cones cluster. |
| Feature Detectors | Nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle or movement. |
| Parallel Processing | The processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many things (Like vision). |
| Three-Color Theory | The retina contains 3 color receptors, red, green and blue. |
| Opponent-Processing Theory | The theory that opposing retinal processes (red and green, yellow and blue, white and black) enable color vision. |
| Gestalt | An organized whole. What people organize clusters of sensations into. |
| 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. |
| Depth Perception | The ability to see objects in 3 dimensions although the images are 2 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 retinal disparity, that depends on the use of 2 eyes. |
| Retinal Disparity | A binocular cue for perceiving depth. The brain computes difference - the greater the disparity the closer the object. |
| Monocular Cues | Depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone. |
| Phi Phenomenon | An Illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession. |
| Perceptual Constancy | Perceiving objects as unchanging (Having consistent shapes, sizes, brightness, and color) even as illumination and retinal images change. |
| Color Constancy | Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object. |
| Perceptual Adaptation | In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field. |
| Audition | The sense or act of hearing. |
| Frequency | The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second) |
| Pitch | A tone's experienced highness or lowness, depends on frequency. |
| Eardrum | A tight membrane that vibrates with sound. |
| Middle Ear | The chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window. |
| Cochlea | A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear; sound waves traveling through the cochlear fluid trigger nerve impulses. |
| Inner Ear | The innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs. |
| Sensonnerual Hearing Loss | Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness. |
| Conduction Hearing Loss | (Less common) Hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea. |
| Cochlear Implant | A device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea. |
| Place Theory | In hearing, the theory that link the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated. |
| Frequency Theory | In hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense it's pitch. |
| Gate-Control Theory | The theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. The "gate" is opened by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers |
| Kinesthesia | 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. |
| Sensory Interaction | The principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its tastes. |
| Embodied Cognition | In psychological science, the influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgements. |
Created by:
emag
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