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Perception vocab
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Abney effect | The shift in hue that occurs with changes in saturation. |
| absolute depth | The actual distance between an external object and the perceiver. |
| absolute threshold | The minimum physical intensity that is required for a stimulus to be detected. Also called detection threshold. |
| absorption spectrum | The function relating light absorption by a particular material to wavelength. |
| accommodation | A change in the surface curvatures of the lens, allowing it to assume different refractive powers depending on object distance. |
| accretion, deletion | The appearance (accretion) or disappearance (deletion) of an object with respect to another when either one or the observer is moving. |
| achromatic channel | The neurons and fibers that encode and transmit information related to the chromatic nature of a stimulus that results in the perception of brightness (emitted light source) or lightness (reflected light source). |
| acoustic cues | The sound components that play an important role in speech perception. |
| action potential | A regenerative process of Na+ channel openings once threshold potential is reached, resulting in a large depolarizing event immediately followed by repolarization due to K+ efflux. The resulting spike in membrane potential is called the action potential. |
| acuity | The ability of the visual system to process image detail. Synonymous with resolution. |
| adaptation | A brief period of reduced neuronal response that occurs after prolonged stimulation. |
| adaptation (2) | A reduction in the firing rates of neurons with continued application of a stimulus, which may in turn account for the reduced awareness of it with prolonged exposure. |
| adaptation (3) | The reduction in perceived intensity or sensitivity due to prior or ongoing background stimulation. |
| adaptation (4) | The reduction in perceived intensity that occurs with a continuously applied, non-varying tactile stimulus. |
| aerial perspective | A pictorial cue derived from the haziness of distant objects caused by atmospheric light scattering. Also known as atmospheric perspective. |
| afferent fiber | The peripheral and central branches of the DRG neuron that form a continuous cable, carrying somatosensory signals from the periphery to the spinal cord. |
| afferent signal | A neural signal that is transmitted from the periphery toward the brain. |
| ageusia | A total loss of taste sensation. |
| agnosia | An inability to recognize or identify the structure and form of objects. |
| allocentric | A frame of reference that specifies object locations independent of the viewer. Also known as exocentric. |
| amacrine cell | A type of retinal neuron that may contribute to the surround response through the lateral connections among bipolar and ganglion cells. |
| amplitude | The maximum pressure change of sound in one direction relative to the baseline. The greater the displacement of a vibrating body, the greater the amplitude of pressure change in the resulting sound wave. |
| analgesia | The absence of the sense of pain. |
| anion, cation | Anions are negatively charged ions, whereas cations are positively charged. |
| anosmia | A loss of olfactory function that can be total (general anosmia) or specific to a particular odour (specific anosmia). |
| anterolateral system | A fiber tract along the frontal (anter) and side (lateral) margins of the spinal cord that transmits touch signals present in A8 and C fibers (i.e., warmth, cold, and pain). |
| aperture | An opening, such as the hole in the iris (pupil) through which light may enter. |
| aperture condition | A condition that restricts a visual scene to a small area, such as when viewing it through a tunnel or hole. |
| aphasia | An impaired ability to speak (Broca's) or understand language (Wernicke's). |
| apparent motion | An illusory motion that results when a stimulus is presented at one location, turned off, and then shown at a different location shortly thereafter. |
| aqueous humour | A watery liquid found in the compartment immediately behind the cornea. |
| area V1 | The primary auditory cortex located in the temporal lobe of both cerebral hemispheres. |
| area FEF | Frontal eye fields- a cortical area in the frontal lobe that is involved in motor processing related to eye movements. |
| area LIP | Lateral intraparietal area- a cortical area in the parietal lobe that is involved in motor processing related to eye movements. |
| area MT | A cortical area first identified in monkeys in which the majority of neurons are directionally selective. The name MT is derived from its approximate anatomical location in the middle-temporal part of the brain. |
| area V1 (2) | The current and most commonly used scientific name for the primary visual cortex. |
| aromatherapy | The use of aromatic oils to enhance mood and, according to some claims, cure ailments from back pain to the discomforts of pregnancy. |
| articulation | The adjustments and movements of the vocal apparatus involved in producing a sound. |
| astigmatism | A lack of symmetry in the curvature of the cornea, causing a blurred retinal image along the affected direction. |
| astrocyte | A type of glial cell that provides structural support to neurons, regulates the ionic balance in the fluid surrounding neurons, and helps form a tight seal around blood vessels. |
| audition | The sense of hearing with particular reference to the sensory aspects involved in that process. This is distinguished from the term acoustics, which refers only to the study of the physical characteristics of sounds and sound waves. |
| auditory scene analysis (ASA) | The process by which the auditory system segregates and analyzes incoming sounds from multiple sources to provide a perceptual representation of the entire auditory scene. |
| azimuth | The horizontal angular value of the direction of the sound source. |
| bandpass noise | A noise signal that contains a limited range of sound frequencies. |
| bandwidth | The range of frequencies contained in the noise signal (i.e. the difference between the highest and lowest frequency values). |
| bel, decibel | A measure of relative intensity given by the logarithm of the ratio of a measured sound intensity to that of a standard reference. One decibel = 1/10th of a bel. |
| Bell-Magendie law | The principle that the dorsal root of spinal nerves carries sensory signals into the spinal cord, whereas the ventral root carries motor signals out to the muscles. |
| Bezold-Bruecke effect | A change to hue perception whereby increasing the intensity of wavelengths above 5100 nm causes hues to shift more toward yellow and wavelengths below 510 nm to shift more toward blue. |
| binaural | Related to sound stimulation of both ears. Binaural neurons can be triggered by stimulation of both cochlea. |
| binaural masking level difference (BMLD) | The detection threshold improvement that accompanies the masking reduction of noise from binaural hearing. |
| binaural summation | The integration of sound signals from the two ears by the auditory nervous system. |
| binding problem | The problem of correctly assembling the elementary features at the pre-attentive stage into a coherent visual object. |
| binocular fusion | The process of integrating retinal images from the two eyes to create a single visual percept. |
| binocular rivalry | A phenomenon that occurs when different images are presented to each eye. Suppression of visual information from one eye on the other causes only one of the images to be perceived at any given time. Also know as binocular suppression. |
| binocular summation | The advantage in visual function that occurs through the additive input of signals from both eyes. |
| binocularity | Pertaining to both eyes. Binocular neurons are responsive to light stimulation through either eye. |
| biological motion perception | The ability to recover complex object information from a sparse set of point-light sources. |
| bipolar cell | A type of retinal neuron located in the inner nuclear layer that conducts signals between photoreceptors and ganglion cells. |
| bistratified ganglgion cell | An anatomically distinct type of ganglion cell involved in processing chromatic information and whose receptive fields show B/Y and Y/B organization. |
| bleaching | The process by which a non-functional form of rhodopsin is created after light absorption. |
| blidnsight | An ability to respond to visual stimuli in the absence of perceptual awareness or sight. |
| Bloch's law | The trade-off between threshold intensity (I) and stimulation time (T) such that the product of the two must reach a critical value (C) for light detection. Mathematically expressed as I x T = C. |
| body reflection | The reflection that occurs after light interacts with the molecules inside an object. The nature of the molecules is responsible for producing the wavelength content of the reflection and therefore the chromatic appearance of the object. |
| brightness, lightness | The perceptual quality that correlates with the physical parameter of light intensity. Brightness is the term used when the light stimulus arises from an emitting source, whereas lightness= stimulus arises from body reflection off an object. |
| broadband noise | A noise signal that encompasses much of the audible frequency range. |
| Broca's aphasia | A generalized loss of language production ability that follows from damage to Broca's area in the left frontal lobe. |
| calibration | To establish a precise relationship between two different variables (e.g. the volume on a sound-producing device and the actual air pressure produced at the eardrum). |
| callus | A hardened or thickened part of the skin that usually occurs from repetitive or excessive strain. A common site for calluses is the palm at the base of the fingers. |
| capsaicin | The active ingredient in chili peppers, which causes the hot burning sensation. |
| categorical perception | A perceptual pattern that is subtle despite small changes in the acoustic signal (such as time) until it comes to a point where it crosses a boundary and enters a new category. |
| central pain | Pain that occurs due to activation in the central pain pathways rather than nociceptive signals from peripheral sites. |
| centre-surround antagonism | A common arrangement found in receptive fields where the neural response to light places in the center is opposite to that in the surround. |
| cerebral cortex | A thin band of cells that covers the surface of the brain. Also known as neocortex. |
| cerebrum | The largest part of the brain, consisting of the two cerebral hemispheres. |
| characteristic frequency | The sound frequency at which the lowest sound intensity is required to produce a significant neural response in a single auditory fiber. This is the frequency at which the fiber is most sensitive. |
| chemogustometry | The application of chemical solutions to the tongue to determine taste function. |
| chemotopic organization | An organized representation of different taste primaries in the gustatory system. |
| chromatic channel | The neurons and fibers that encode and transmit information related to the chromatic nature of a stimulus that results in the perception of hue. |
| chromaticity | The quality of a colour. |
| cilia | Small hair-like filaments that project from the terminal end of the sensory neuron's dendrites into the mucus layer. There can be anywhere from five to 30 cilia per dendrite. |
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