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PSYC Chapter Four

MTA PSYC 1001 Chapter Four: Sensation and Perception

TermDefinition
Absolute Threshold The lowest level of stimulus needed for the nervous system to detect a change 50% of the time.
Accommodation Changing the shape of the lens to focus on objects near or far.
Acuity Sharpness of vision.
Audition Our sense of hearing.
Basilar Membrane The membrane that supports the organ of Corti and hair cells in the cochlea.
Binocular Depth Cues Stimuli that enable us to judge depth using both eyes.
Blind Spot The region of the retina that contains no rods and is devoid of sense receptors.
Bottom-Up Processing Processing in which a whole is constructed from parts.
Cochlea The bony, spiral shaped sense organ used for hearing.
Color Blindness The inability to see some or all colors.
Cones Receptor cells in the retina that allow us to see in color.
Cornea The part of the eye containing transparent cells that focus light in the retina.
Dark Adaptation The time in darkness before our rods gain maximum light sensitivity.
Depth Perception The ability to judge distance and 3-d relations.
Feature Detector Cell Cells that detect lines and edges.
Fovea The central portion of the retina.
Frequency Theory The rate at which neurons fire action potentials, determines the pitch of a sound.
Gate Control Model The idea that pain is blocked or "gated" from consciousness by neural mechanisms in the spinal cord.
Gustation Our sense of taste.
Hue The color of light.
Illusion Perceiving a stimulus that doesn't match its physical reality.
Inattentional Blindness The failure to detect stimuli that are in plain sight when our attention is focused elsewhere.
Just Noticeable Difference The smallest change in the intensity of a stimulus that we can detect.
Lens The part of the eye that changes curvature to keep images in focus.
Monocular Depth Cues Stimuli that enable us to judge depth using only one eye.
Olfaction Our sense of smell.
Opponent Process Theory The theory that we perceive colors in terms of three pairs of opponent colors: red or green, blue or yellow, and black or white.
Optic Nerve The nerve that travels from the retina to the brain.
Organ of Corti The tissue containing the hair cells necessary for hearing.
Parallel Processing The ability to attend to multiple senses at the same time.
Perception The brain's interpretation of raw sensory input.
Perceptual Constancy The process by which we perceive stimuli consistently across varied conditions.
Perceptual Set The set formed when expectations influence perceptions.
Phantom Pain Pain or discomfort felt in an amputated limb.
Pheromone An odorless chemical that serves as a social signal to member's of one's species.
Place Theory States that a specific place along the basilar membrane matches a tone with a specific pitch.
Proprioception Our sense of body position.
Psychophysics The study of how we perceive sensory stimuli based on their physical characteristics.
Pupil The circular hole through which light enters the eye.
Retina The membrane at the back of the eye that's responsible for converting light into neural activity.
Rods The receptor cells in the retina that allow us to see in low levels of light.
Selective Attention The process of selecting one sensory channel and ignoring/minimizing others.
Semicircular Canals Three fluid filled canals in the inner ear that are responsible for our sense of balance.
Sensation The detection of physical energy by our sense organs, which then send information to the brain.
Sense Receptor The specialized cells responsible for converting external stimuli into neural activity for a specific sensory system.
Sensory Adaptation The process in which activation is greatest when a stimulus is first detected.
Signal Detection Theory The theory regarding how stimuli are detected under different conditions.
Somatosensory Our sense of touch, temperature, and pain.
Subliminal Perception Perception below limen, or threshold of conscious awareness.
Synesthesia A condition in which people experience cross-modal sensations.
Taste Bud The sense receptors in the tongue that respond to sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami, and fat.
Timbre The complexity or quality of sound that makes musical instruments, human voices, or other sources sound unique.
Top-Down Processing Processing influenced by beliefs and expectancies.
Transduction The process of converting an external energy or substance into electrical activity within neurons.
Trichromatic Theory The idea that color vision is based on our sensitivity to three primary colors.
Vestibular Sense Our sense of balance.
Weber's Law The principle that states there is a constant proportional relationship between the just noticeable difference and original stimulus intensity.
Created by: calhouncouch
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