Unit 7: Sensation and Perception
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wloewenthal on January 24, 2012
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59 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Sensation | the process by which our sensory receptors receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment |
| Perception | the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events |
| Bottom-Up Processing | the perceptual analysis that emphasizes characteristics or segments of the stimulus |
| Top-down processing | the perceptual analysis that emphasizes the perceiver's expectations and experiences |
| psychophysics | studies the relationship between the characteristics of stimuli and our psychological experience of them |
| absolute threshold | the smallest detectable level of a stimulus |
| signal-detection theory | states there is not single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness |
| subliminal | means below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness |
| difference threshold | the smallest physical difference between two stimuli that can still be recognized as a difference |
| weber's law | the greater the magnitude of the stimulus, the larger a difference is needed for it to be detected |
| sensory adaptation | is diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation |
| transduction | is the conversion of one form of energy into another |
| wavelength | the distance from one wave peak to the next |
| hue | color we experience |
| intensity | the amount of energy in light waves |
| pupil | small adjustable opening surrounded by the iris |
| iris | a colored muscle that adjusts light intake |
| retina | a multilayered tissue on the eyeball's sensitive inner surface |
| accommodation | a mental process that restructures existing schemes so that new information is better understood |
| rods | photoreceptors that are especially sensitive to dim light but not to colors |
| cones | photoreceptors that are especially sensitive to colors but not to dim light |
| optic nerve | which transports visual information from the eye to the brain |
| blind spot | The optic nerve area; because that part of the retina has no photoreceptors |
| fovea | the tiny area of sharpest vision in the brain |
| feature detector | ability to respond to a scene's specific features |
| parallel processing | The brain then constructs our perceptions by combing the separate but parallel work of these different visual teams |
| trichromatic theory | colors are sensed by three different types of cones sensitive to light in the red, blue, and green wavelengths |
| opponent process theory | the idea that cells in the visual system process colors in complementary pairs |
| frequency | determines pitch |
| pitch | a tone's experience of highness or lowness. |
| middle ear | transmits the eardrum's vibrations through a piston made of three ting bones (the hammer, anvil, and stirrup) to the cochlea |
| cochlea | a snail-shaped tube in the inner ear |
| place theory | presumes that we hear different pitches because different sound waves trigger activity at different places along the cochlea's basilar membrane |
| frequency theory | Theory presumes the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone |
| conduction hearing loss | the way in which sound waves are converted to nerve energy has been interfered with or interrupted |
| sensorineural hearing loss | Damage in auditory nerve or other higher processing centers |
| cochlear implant | are devices for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes in the cochlea |
| kinesthesis | The sense of body position and movement of individual body parts |
| vestibular sense | is the sense of body orientation with respect to gravity |
| gate-control theory | is an explanation for pain control that proposes we have a neural "gate" that can, under some circumstances, block incoming pain signals |
| gestalt | an organized whole caused by integrating pieces |
| figure ground | the organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surrounding |
| grouping | the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups |
| depth perception | the ability to see objects in three dimensions despite hitting our retina in two dimensions |
| visual cliff | is a lab device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals |
| binocular cues | are depth cues that depend on the use of two eyes |
| retinal disparity | is how we perceive depth; the greater the difference between two images, the closer the object |
| monocular cues | depth cues available to either eye alone |
| phi phenomenon | is an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession |
| perceptual constancy | perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change |
| color constancy | allows us to see constant colors, even if the surroundings change |
| perceptual set | is a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another |
| human factors psychology | who explore how people and machines interact and how machines can be easier and safer to use |
| ESP | is the claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition |
| Law of Continuity | We perceive smooth, continuous pattern rather than discontinuous ones |
| Law of connectedness | we perceive each set of two dots and the line between them as a single unit. |
| Law of Closure | We fill in gaps to create a complete, whole object |
| Law of Proximity | We group nearby figures together |
| Law of Similarity | We group similar figures together |
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