AP Psychology, Chapter 6: Sensation and Perception
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Created by:
FFurman on November 14, 2011
Subjects:
ap psychology, unit 4, chapter 6, myers, sensation and perception
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62 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Sensation | The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment. |
| Perception* | The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, which enables us to recognize meaningful objects and events. |
| Bottom-Up Processing | Analysis that begins with the sense receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information. |
| Top-Down Processing | Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations. |
| Selective Attention | the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus |
| Inattentional Blindness | failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere (e.g. looking for glasses when they are on your head) |
| Change Blindness | failing to notice changes in the environment |
| Psychophysics | the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them |
| Absolute Threshold* | the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time |
| Signal Detection Theory | predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise) Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectation, motivation, and level of fatigue |
| Subliminal | below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness |
| Priming | the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response |
| Difference Threshold* | the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference. (Also called the just noticeable difference or JND.) |
| Weber's Law | to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount) |
| Sensory Adaptation* | diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation |
| Transduction* | conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brains can interpret. |
| Wavelength | the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next, in the electromagnetic spectrum |
| Hue | the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light |
| Intensity | the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude (height) |
| Pupil | the adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters |
| Lens | a transparent optical device used to converge or diverge transmitted light and to form images |
| Retina* | the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information |
| Accommodation | the process where the lens focuses the rays by changing its curvature. |
| Rods | retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond. |
| Cones | retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. Detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations. |
| Optic Nerve* | the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain. |
| Blind Spot | the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a spot where there are no receptor cells located. |
| Fovea | the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster |
| Feature Detectors | nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement. |
| Parallel Processing | the processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision |
| Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory | The theory that the retina contains three different color receptors—one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue—which combined can produce the perception of any color. |
| Opponent-Process Theory* | the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision. Explained by the concept of afterimages |
| Audition | the sense or act of hearing. |
| Frequency | the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second) |
| Pitch | a tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency. |
| Middle Ear | transmits the eardrum's vibrations through a piston made of three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) to the cochlea |
| 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 |
| Place Theory | in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated. Best explains how we sense high pitches. |
| Frequency Theory | in hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to its sense of pitch. Best explains how we sense low pitches. |
| Conduction Hearing Loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea |
| Sensorineural Hearing Loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness |
| Cochlear Implant | a device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea |
| 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 |
| Gate-Control Theory* | Melzack and Wall's theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks or allows pain signals to pass on to the brain. |
| Sensory Interaction | the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste |
| Gestalt* | an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes |
| Figure-Ground | the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground). |
| Grouping | the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups (proximity, similarity, continuity, connectedness, closure) |
| Depth Perception | the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance |
| Visual Cliff | a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals |
| Binocular Cues* | depth cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence, that depend on the use of two eyes |
| Retinal Disparity | a binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing images from the two eyeballs, the brain computes distance - the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the close the object |
| Monocular Cues | depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone |
| Phi Phenomenon | an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession |
| Perceptual Constancy | perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change |
| Color Constancy | perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object |
| Perceptual Adaptation* | in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field |
| Perceptual Set | a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another |
| Extrasensory Perception (ESP) | the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input. Said to include telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. |
| Parapsychology | the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis |
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