psych chapter 4: sensation and perception
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inter65000 on October 12, 2009
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66 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 sensation | the stimulation of sense organs |
| perception | the selection, organization, and interpretation of sensory input |
| psychophysics | the study of how physical stimuli are translated into psychological experience |
| inattentional blindness | the failure to see fully visible objects or events because our attention is focused elsewhere |
| absolute threshold | the minimum amount of stimulation that can be detected by an organism for a specific type of sensory input |
| just noticeable difference | the smallest amount of difference in the amount of stimulation that can be detected in a sense |
| weber's law | the size of a JND is a constant proportion of the size of the initial stimulus |
| signal detection theory | sensory sensitivity depends on a variety of factors besides the physical intensity of the stimulus |
| sensory adaptation | gradual decline in sensitivity to prolonged stimulation |
| olfactory system | sense of smell |
| lens | transparent eye structure that focuses the light rays falling on the retina |
| pupil | opening in the center of the iris that helps regulate the amount of light passing into the rear chamber of the eye |
| retina | neural tissue lining the inside back surface of the eye that absorbs light, processes images, and sends visual information to the brain |
| cones | specialized receptors that play a key role in daylight and color vision |
| rods | specialized receptors that play a key role in night and peripheral vision |
| fovea | a tiny spot in the center of the retina that contains only cones, where visual acuity is greatest |
| dark adaptation | the process in which the eyes become more sensitive to the light in low illumination |
| light adaptation | the process in which the eyes become less sensitive to light in high illumination |
| color blindness | variety of deficiencies in the ability to distinguish among colors |
| receptive field of a visual cell | the retinal area that, when stimulated, affects the firing of a particular cell |
| optic disk | a hold in the retina where the optic nerve fibers exit the eye |
| feature detectors | neurons that respond selectively to very specific features of more complex stimuli |
| subtractive color mixing | works by removing some wavelenghts of light, leaving less light than was originally there |
| additive color mixing | works by superimposing lights, leaving more light in the mixture than in any one light by itself |
| trichromatic theory | proposes that the human eye has three types of receptors with differeing sesitivites to different wavelengths |
| complementary colors | pairs of colors that can be added together to produce gray tones |
| afterimage | a visual image that persists after a stimulus is removed |
| opponent process theory | proposes that color is perceived in three channels, where an either or responsive is made to pairs of antagonistic colors |
| reversible figure | a drawing compatible with 2 different interpretations that can shift back and forth |
| perceptual set | a readiness to perceive a stimulus in a particular way |
| feature analysis | process in which we detect specific elements in a visual input and assemble these elements into a more complex form |
| bottom up processing | progression from individual elements to the whole |
| top down processing | progression from the whole to the individual elements |
| visual illusion | inexplicable discrepancy between the appearance of a visual stimulus and its physical reality |
| phi phenomenon | illusion of movement created by presenting visual stimuli in rapid succession |
| distal stimuli | stimuli that lie in the distance in the world outside us |
| proximal stimuli | the stimulus energies that impinge directly on our sensory receptors |
| perceptual hypothesis | inference about what distal stimuli could be responsible for the proximal stimuli sensed |
| depth perception | involves our interpretation of visual cues that tell us how near or far away objects are |
| binocular depth cues | clues about distance that are obtained by comparing the differing views of two eyes |
| monocular depth cues | clues about distance that are obtained from the image in either eye alone |
| perceptual constancy | tendency to experience a stable perception in the face of constantly changing sensory input |
| auditory localization | locating the source of a sound in space |
| cochlea | fluis filled, coiled tunnel that makes up the largest part of the inner ear |
| basilar membrane | membrane running the length of the cochlea that holds the actual auditory receptors called hair cells |
| place theory | perception of pitch corresponds to the vibration of different portions, or places, along the basilar membrane |
| frequency theory | perception of pitch corresponds to the rate, or frequency, at which the entire basilar membrane vibrates |
| volley principle | groups of auditory nerve fibers fire neural impulses in rapid succession, creating volleys of impulses |
| gustatory system | sense of taste |
| lateral antagonism | neural activity in a cell opposes activity in surrounding cells |
| impossible objects | objects that can be represented in 2-d figures but can't exist in 3-d space |
| gate control theory | holds that incoming pain sensations pass through a gate in the spinal cord that can be opened or closed |
| kinesthetic system | sense that monitors the positions of the various parts of the body |
| vestibular system | system that provides sense of balance |
| optic chiasm | point at which the optic nerves from the inside half of each eye cross over and then project to the opposite half of the brain |
| pictorial depth cues | clues about distance that can be given in a flat picture |
| subliminal perception | the registration of sensory input without conscious awareness |
| parallel processing | involves simultaneously extracting different kinds of information from the same input |
| nearsightedness | close objects are clear but distant objects are blurry |
| farsightedness | distant objects are clear but close objects are blurry |
| retinal disparity | depth cue which refers to the fact that objects within 25 feet project images to slightly different locations on your right and left retinas, so the right and left eyes see slightly different images |
| convergence | binocular cue which involves sensing the eyes converging toward each other as they focus on closer objects |
| motion parallax | monocular deptch cue which involves images of objects at different distances moving across the retina at different rates |
| subjective contours | perception of contours where none actually exist |
| comparitors | people, objects, events, and other standards that are used as a baseline for comparitors in judgments |
| door in the face technique | making a very large request that is likely to be turned down to increase the chances that people will agree to a smaller request |
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