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Psych 367 M1
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Absolute threshold | smallest stimulus level that can just be detected |
| Action | motor activities in response to the stimulus |
| Bottom-up processing (data-based processing) | processing that is based on the stimuli reaching the receptor |
| Categorize | to place objects into categories |
| Cerebral cortex | 2-mm-thick layer that contains the machinery for creating perceptions |
| Classical psychophysical methods | the method of limits, the method of constant stimuli, and the method of adjustment |
| Difference threshold | the smallest difference between two stimuli that enables us to tell the difference between them |
| Distal stimulus | out there in the environment |
| Frontal lobe | receives signals from all of the senses, plays an important role in perceptions that involve the coordination of information received through two or more senses |
| Grating acuity | thee smallest width of lines that participants can detect |
| Knowledge | any information that the perceiver brings to a situation, such as prior experience or expectations |
| Magnitude estimation | measuring judgements of sensory stimuli in a mathematical way (bright, dim; big, small) |
| Method of adjustment | adjusts the stimulus intensity continuously until he or she can just barely detect the stimulus |
| Method of constant stimuli | different stimulus intensities are presented one at a time, and the participant must respond whether they perceive it (“yes” or “no”) on each trial |
| Method of limits | stimuli are presented in a graduated scale, and participants must judge whether they detected the stimulus or not |
| Neural processing | changes in signals that occur as they are transmitted through the brain |
| Oblique effect | that people see vertical or horizontal lines better than lines oriented obliquely |
| Occipital lobe | primary receiving area for vision |
| Parietal lobe | area for the skin senses—touch, temperature, and pain |
| Perceived magnitude | number for “loudness” |
| Perception | experience that results from the stimulation of the senses |
| Perceptual process | journey from stimuli to responses |
| Phenomenological report | Describing what is out there |
| Physiology–behavior relationship | relates physiological responses and behavioral responses |
| Primary receiving area | the lobe of the brain for each type of sensation |
| Principle of representation | everything a person perceives is based not on direct contact with stimuli but on representations of stimuli that are formed on the receptors and the resulting activity in the person’s nervous system. |
| Principle of transformation | stimuli and responses created by stimuli are transformed, or changed, between the distal stimulus and perception. |
| Proximal stimulus | representation of the distal stimulus on the receptors (electron, photons, vibrations) |
| Psychophysics | measures the relationships between the physical (the stimulus) and the psychological (the behavioral response) |
| Rat–man demonstration | the image that you either interpret as a rat or a man depending on what you were primed for |
| Reaction time | speed with which we react to something |
| Recognition | placing an object in a category |
| Sensation | the stimulation of the sensory organs/ receptors |
| Sensory receptors | neurons specialized to respond to environmental stimuli |
| Stimulus–behavior relationship | relates stimuli to behavioral responses, such as perception, recognition, and action |
| Stimulus–physiology relationship | relationship between stimuli (Steps 1–2) and physiological responses |
| Temporal lobe | hearing |
| Thresholds | measure the limits of sensory systems; they are measures of minimums |
| Top-down processing (knowledge based processing) | processing that is based on knowledge |
| Transduction | transformation of environmental energy (such as light, sound, or thermal energy) to electrical energy |
| Visual form agnosia | an inability to recognize objects |
| Action potential | predictable rise and fall of the charge inside the axon relative to the outside |
| Axon | conducts electrical signals (long) |
| Brain imaging | recording brain responses in neurologically normal humans |
| Broca’s area | speech production area |
| Cell body | provides for cell |
| Dendrites | receive signals from other cells. Connected to cell body |
| Depolarization | increase in positive charge inside the neuron (-70 to +40) |
| Distributed representation | brain represents information in patterns distributed across the cortex, rather than in one single brain area |
| Excitatory response | when the neuron becomes depolarized, and thus the inside of the neuron becomes more positive |
| Falling phase of the action potential | +40 mV back to –70 |
| Functional connectivity | neural activity associated with a particular function that is flowing through this structural network |
| Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) | 3D scan of brian using the oxygen polarity in brain according to concentration |
| Grandmother cell | neuron in your brain that fires only in response to one person |
| Hyperpolarization | increase in negative charge inside the neuron |
| Inhibitory response | when the charge inside the axon becomes more negative so that firing is harder |
| Ions | molecules that carry an electrical charge |
| Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) | 2D image of brain according to oxygen polarity and concentration |
| Mind–body problem | How do physical processes like nerve impulses (the body part of the problem) become transformed into the richness of perceptual experience (the mind part of the problem)? |
| Modularity | specific brain areas are specialized to respond to specific types of stimuli or functions |
| Module | each specific area in modularity theory |
| Nerve fiber | axon |
| Neurons | cells specialized to carry electrical signals |
| Neuropsychology | the study of the behavioral effects of brain damage in humans |
| Neurotransmitters | chemical messengers |
| Permeability | This opening of sodium channels |
| Phrenology | mental faculties that could be mapped onto different brain areas based on the bumps and contours on the person’s skull |
| Population coding | our experiences are represented by the pattern of firing across a large number of neurons |
| Propagated response | once the response is triggered, it travels all the way down the axon without decreasing in size. |
| Receptor sites | small areas on the receiving neuron |
| Refractory period | the interval between the time one nerve impulse occurs and the next one can be generated in the axon |
| Resting potential | -70 mV |
| Resting-state fMRI | record fMRI when the brain is not involved in a specific task |
| Resting-state functional connectivity | |
| Rising phase of the action potential | quick and steep depolarization from –70 mV to +40 mV during an action potential |
| Seed location | brain location associated with carrying out a specific task |
| Sensory coding | how neurons represent various characteristics of the environment |
| Sparse coding | particular stimulus is represented by a pattern of firing of only a small group of neurons |
| Specificity coding | specialized neuron that responds only to one concept or stimulus |
| Spontaneous activity | Action potentials that occur in the absence of stimuli from the environment |
| Structural connectivity | “road map” of fibers connecting different areas of the brain |
| Synapse | small space between axon and dendrite |
| Task-related fMRI | fMRI measured as a person is engaged in a specific task |
| Test location | measure the resting-state fMRI at another location |
| Wernicke’s area | understanding speech |
| Absorption spectrum | plot of the amount of light absorbed versus the wavelength of the light |
| Accommodation | change in the lens’s shape that occurs when the ciliary muscles at the front of the eye tighten and increase the curvature of the lens so that it gets thicker |
| Amacrine cells | lateral inhibition |
| Axial myopia | eyeball is too long |
| Bipolar cells | |
| Blind spot | the spot where you optic nerve concerts to eye ball |
| Center-surround antagonism | antagonistic interactions between center and surround regions of the receptive fields of photoreceptor cells in the retina. |
| Center-surround receptive field | |
| Chevreul illusion | how placing colors side by side could alter their appearance |
| Cone spectral sensitivity | |
| Cones | color |
| Convergence | when a number of neurons synapse onto a single neuron |
| Cornea | film on eye |
| Dark adaptation | when our rods are activated and become sensitive to low light environments |
| Dark adaptation curve (p. 46) | |
| Dark-adapted sensitivity | sensitivity at the end of dark adaptation |
| Detached retina | when a person’s retina becomes detached from the pigment epithelium, a layer that contains enzymes necessary for pigment regeneration |
| Edge enhancement | an increase in perceived contrast at borders between regions of the visual field |
| Excitatory area | presenting a spot of light increases firing |
| Excitatory-center, inhibitory-surround receptive field (p. 56) | |
| Eyes (p. 40) | |
| Farsightedness/ hyperopia | can see distant objects clearly but have trouble seeing nearby objects |
| Fovea | contains only cones |
| Ganglion cells | output neurons that encode and transmit information from the eye to the brain |
| Horizontal cells | GABAergic interneurons that receive information from cones and rods |
| Inhibitory area | presenting a spot of light decreases firing |
| Inhibitory-center, excitatory-surround receptive field (p. 56) | |
| Isomerization | activates thousands of charged molecules to create electrical signals in receptors |
| Lateral inhibition | inhibition that is transmitted across the retina (laterally) |
| Lens | the blob that does the focusing. The thing that doesn't work in my eye |
| Light-adapted sensitivity | sensitivity measured in the light |
| Mach bands | Light and dark bands created at fuzzy borders |
| Macular degeneration | destroys the cone-rich fovea and a small area that surrounds it |
| Monochromatic light | Light of a single wavelength |
| Myopia/ Nearsightedness | an inability to see distant objects clearly |
| Neural circuits | interconnected groups of neuron |
| Neural convergence | when a number of neurons synapse onto a single neuron |
| Ommatidia | large structures inside the horseshoe crabs eyes that made it easy to study lateral inhibition |
| Optic nerve | nerve that goes from eye to brain |
| Outer segments | part of the receptor that contains light-sensitive chemicals called visual pigments |
| Peripheral retina | there are about 120 million rods and only 6 million cones in the retina |
| Photoreceptors | cells in eye that can detect light |
| Preferential looking technique | |
| Presbyopia | hardening of the lens and weakening of the ciliary muscles |
| Pupil | pretty muscle |
| Purkinje shift | as intensity dims, the rods take over, and before color disappears completely, it shifts towards the rods' top sensitivity. |
| Receptive field | the region of the retina that must receive illumination in order to obtain a response in any given fiber |
| Refractive errors | f errors that can affect the ability of the cornea and/or lens to focus the visual input onto the retina |
| Refractive myopia | cornea and/or the lens bends the light too much |
| Retina (p. 40) | |
| Retinitis pigmentosa | genetic disorder that results in total blindness |
| Rod monochromats | no cones because of a rare genetic defect |
| Rod–cone break | The place where the rods begin to determine the dark adaptation curve instead of the cones |
| Rod spectral sensitivity curve | measuring sensitivity after the eye is dark adapted |
| Rods | dark vision |
| Spectral sensitivity | rods are more sensitive to short-wavelength light than are the cones |
| Spectral sensitivity curve (p. 49) | |
| Transduction | transformation of environmental energy (such as light, sound, or thermal energy) to electrical energy |
| Visual acuity | ability to see detail (better in cones) |
| Visual evoked potential | |
| Visual pigment bleaching | change in shape and separation from the opsin causes the photoreceptor molecule to become lighter in color |
| Visual pigment regeneration | the retinal needs to return to its bent shape and become reattached to the opsin reforming the visual pigment molecule |
| Visual pigments | part of the receptor that contains light-sensitive chemicals |
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Avjoshi
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