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Sensation what occurs when a stimulus activates a receptor Perception the organization of sensory information into meaningful experiences Psychophysics the study of the relationships between sensory experiences and the physical stimuli that cause them absolute threshold the weakest amount of a stimulus that a person can detect half the time difference threshold the smallest change in a physical stimulus that can be detected between two stimuli Weber's Law the principle that the larger or stronger a stimulus, the larger the change required for an observer to notice a difference Signal-detection Theory the study of people's tendencies to make correct judgments in detecting the presence of stimuli pupil the opening in the iris that regulates the amount of light entering the eye lens a flexible, transparent structure in the eye that changes its shape to focus light on the retina retina the innermost coating of the back of the eye, containing the light sensitive receptor cells optic nerve the nerve that carries impulses from the retina to the brain binocular fusion the process of combining the images received from the two eyes into a single fuses image retinal disparity the difference between the images stimulating each eye auditory nerve the nerve that carries impulses from the inner ear to the brain, resulting in the sensation of sound vestibular system three semicircular canals that provide the sense of balance, located in the inner ear and connected to the brain by a nerve olfactory nerve the nerve that carries smell impulses from the nose to the brain kinesthesis the sense of movement and body position Gestalt The experience that comes from organizing bits and pieces of information into meaningful wholes subliminal messages brief auditory or visual messages that are presented below the absolute threshold motion parallax the apparent movement of stationary objects relative to one another that occurs when the observer changes position Constancy the tendency to perceive certain objects in the same way regardless of changing angle, distance, or lighting illusions perceptions that misrepresent physical stimuli extrasensory perception (ESP) an ability to gain information by some means other than the ordinary senses