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PSYC Chapter Four
MTA PSYC 1001 Chapter Four: Sensation and Perception
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| 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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