| Term | Definition |
|---|
| transduction | a process in which the signals are transformed into neural impulses |
| cornea | a protective covering that focuses the light |
| pupil | is like the lens of a camera |
| accommodation | a process in which light that enters the pupil is focused by the lens |
| retina | is like a screen on the back of the eye |
| cones | cells that are activated by color |
| rods | cells that respond to black and white |
| fovea | indentation in the retina that contains the highest concentration of cones |
| optic chiasm | the spot where the nerves cross each other |
| trichromatic theory | a theory that we have three types of cones that detect blue, red, and green |
| opponent-process theory | a theory that the sensory receptors arranged in the retina come in pairs |
| amplitude | the height of the wave |
| frequency | the length of the waves |
| place theory | a theory that the hair cells in the cochlea respond to different frequencies of sound |
| frequency theory | a theory that we sense pitch because the hair cells fire at different rates in the cochlea |
| conduction deafness | occurs when something goes wrong with the system of conducting the sound to the cochlea |
| nerve deafness | occurs when the hair cells in the cochlea are damaged |
| gate-control theory | a theory that explains why some pain messages have a higher priority than others |
| papillae | the bumps on the tongue |
| absolute threshold | the smallest amount of stimulus we can detect |
| subliminal | amount of stimuli that is below the absolute threshold |
| Weber's law | a law that the change needed is proportional to the original intensity of the stimulus |
| signal detection theory | a theory that investigates the effects of the distractions we experience while perceving the world |
| response criteria | how motivated we are to detect certain stimuli and what we expect to perceive |
| false positive | perceiving a false stimulus that does not exist |
| false negative | not perceiving a real stimulus that is there |
| top-down processing | using the background knowledge to fill in gaps |
| perceptual set | perceiving something in a certain way due to predisposition |
| bottom-up processing | also called feature analysis, it is using the features of the object to build a complete perception |
| figure-ground relationship | what part of a visual image is the figure and what part is the background |
| size constancy | taking the distance into account in our estimations of size |
| shape constancy | knowing that the shape of an object remains constant |
| brightness constancy | knowing that objects are always the same color even as the light reflected on them change |
| stroboscopic effect | images in a series |
| phi phenomenon | a series of lightbulb turned on and off at a certain rate will appear to be one moving light |
| autokinetic effect | a spot of light in a dark place will appear to be moving |
| Eleanor Gibson | he used the visual cliff experiment |
| visual cliff experiment | an experiment conducted to determine whether human infants can perceive depth |
| interposition cue | objects that block the view to other objects must be closer to us |
| texture gradient | things closer to use are viewed in more detail |
| convergence | as an object gets closer to us, our eyes must move toward each other to focus on it |
Combine with other sets
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