Modules 11-14: Sensation and Perception
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Created by:
bedstuyfresh on October 27, 2008
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62 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 rods | detect black, white or gray |
| cones | detect well-lit light or daylight conditions |
| optic nerve | carries information to the brain. Its made up of axons |
| blind spot | the optic nerve leaves the eye and no receptor cells are present |
| fovea | the retina's area of focus, where the cones cluster |
| sensation | a process where we detect physical energy from the environment and encode it as neural signals |
| perception | when we select, organize and interpret the sensations |
| bottom-up processing | using the sensory receptors to detect the lines, angles, and colors that form an image |
| top-down processing | to process information by constructing perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations |
| psychophysics | the study of the relationship between physical energy and our psychological experience |
| absolute thresholds | the minimum stimulation necessary to detect a particular light, sound, pressure, taste, or ordor 50% of the time |
| subliminal | below absolute threshold for conscious awareness |
| prime | the activation of certain associations, predisposing one's perception, memory or response |
| difference threshold | the minimum difference a person can detect between any two stimuli half the time |
| Weber's Law | for something to be perceived as different, as two stimuli must differ by a constant proportion-not a constant amount |
| sensory adaptation | our diminishing sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus |
| wavelength | the distance from one peak to the next |
| hue | the color we experience determined by the wavelengths |
| intensity | the amount of energy in light waves |
| accommodation | the process in which the lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina |
| feature detectors | nerve cells that enter the brain responding to specific features of the stimulus such as shape, movement, or angle located in the occiptal lobe |
| parallel-processing | the processing of many aspects simultaneously in the brain |
| Young-helmholtz trichromatic (three color) theory | the retina has three types of color receptors, each especially sensitive to one of the three colors; red, green, and blue, and when these cones are combinationally stimulated, we see other colors |
| Opponent-Process Theory | the opposing retinal processes enable color vision. (red-green; yellow-blue; white-black) |
| Gesalt | an organized whole |
| Figure-ground | the organization of the visual field into objects (figures) that stand out from their surroundings (ground) |
| Grouping | organizing stimuli into coherent groups |
| proximity | group nearby figures together |
| similarity | we group similar figures together |
| continuity | to perceive smooth, continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones |
| connectedness | perceiving two dots and a line as a single unit |
| closure | fill in gaps to create a complete, whole object |
| Depth Perception | estimating the distance between us and an object which we see in 3 dimensions |
| Visual Cliff | a laboratory device used to test depth perception in infants and young animals |
| Binocular Cues | depth cues that depend on the use of two eyes |
| Retinal Disparity | difference computed with the use of the eyes between two things |
| Monocular Cues | depth cues that are available to either eye |
| Relative Height | perceive objects higher in our field of vision as farther away |
| Relative Motion | as we move, objects that are stable appear to move |
| Relative Size | if we assume objects are similar in size, the one that casts the smaller retinal image is farther away |
| Interposition | if one object partially blocks our view of another we perceive it as closer. |
| Light and Shadow | nearby objects reflect more light to our eyes |
| Perceptual Constancy | perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change |
| color constancy | perceiving familiar objects as having constant color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object |
| perceptual adaptation | invision to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field |
| perceptual set | mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another |
| Extrasensory Perception | the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input |
| Telepathy | mind-to-mind communication |
| Clairvoyance | perceiving remote events |
| Precognition | perceiving future events |
| Psychokinesis | mind over matter {ex: levitating a table} |
| Parapsychology | the study of ESP and psychokinesis |
| audition | our hearing |
| frequency | the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time |
| pitch | a tone's experienced highness or lowness {depends on frequency} |
| middle ear | the chamber between the ear drum and the cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window |
| cochlea | a coiled, bony fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses |
| inner ear | the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs |
| gate-control theory | theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain; the spinal cord nerve fibers conduct most of the pain signals |
| sensory interaction | the principle that one sense may influence another {the smell of food influences its taste} |
| kinesthesis | the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts |
| vestibular sense | the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance |
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