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AP Psychology: Chapters 5

Terms in this set (30)

sensation
The process by which we detect physical energy from the environment and encode it as neural signals is...
perception
The process by which sensations are selected, organized, and interpreted is...
bottom-up processing
Sensory analysis, which starts at the entry level and works up, is called...
top-down processing
Perceptual analysis, which works from our experience and expectations, is called...
psychophysics
The study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli and our psychological experience of them is...
absolute threshold, 50
The ... refers to the minimum stimulation necessary for a stimulus to be detected ... percent of the time.
signal detection, psychological
The theory of ... led to the concept that absolute thresholds depend not only on the strength of the signal but also on a person's ... state.
subliminal
Some entrepreneurs claim that exposure to "below threshold," or ...., stimuli can be persuasive, but their claims are probably unwarranted.
conscious
Some weak stimuli may trigger in our sensory receptors a response that is processed by the brain, even though the response doesn't cross the threshold into ... awareness.
difference threshold, just noticeable difference
The minimum difference required to distinguish two stimuli 50% of the time is called the ..., or the ....
wavelength, hue
The distance from one light wave peak to the next is called ....This value determines the wave's color, or ...
intensity, amplitude, brightness
The amount of energy in light waves, or ..., determined by a wave's ...., or heigh, influence the ... of a light.
cornea, pupil, iris
Light enters the eye through the ..., then passes through a size of this opening is controlled by ...
lens, retina
By changing its curvature, the ... can focus the images to focus the image of an object onto the ..., the light-sensitive inner surface for the eye.
cones, rods
The retina's receptor cells are the ... and ...
bipolar, ganglion, optic nerve, brain
The neural signals produced in the rods and cones activate the neighboring ... cells, which then activate a network of ... cells. The axons of ganglion cells converge to form the ..., which carries the visual information to the ...
blind spot
Where this nerve leaves the eye, there are no receptors; thus the are is called the ...
fovea, peripherals, bipolar
Most cones are clustered around the retina's point of central focus, called the ..., whereas the rods are concentrated in more ... regions of the retina. Many cones have their own ... cells to communicate with the visual cortex.
cones, rods
It is the (rods/cones) of the eye that permit the perception of color, whereas (rods/cones) enable black-and-white vision
opponent-process, red, green, yellow, blue, black, white
Hering's theory of color vision is called the ... theory. According to this theory, after visual information leaves the receptors it is analyzed as terms of pairs of opposing colors: ... vs ..., ... vs ...., and ... vs ...
color constancy
In an unvarying context, a familiar object will be perceived as having consistent color, even as the light changes. This phenomenon is called ...
frequency
The pitch of a sound is derived from the ... of its wave
eardrum
The outer ear channels sound waves toward the ..., a tight membrane that then vibrates.
hammer, anvil, stirrup
The middle ear transmits the vibrations through a piston made of three small bones: the ..., ..., and ...
cochlea, oval window, basilar membrane, hair cells, thalamus, temporal, number
In the inner ear, a coiled tube called the ... contains the receptor cells for hearing. The incoming vibrations cause the ... to vibrate the fluid that fills the tube, which cases ripples in the ..., which is line with ... This movement triggers impulses in adjacent nerve fibers that converge to form the auditory nerve, which carries the neural messages (via the ...) to the ... lobe's auditory cortex. The brain interprets loudness from the ... of hair cells a sound activates
placement theory
One theory of pitch perception proposes that different pitches activate different places on the cochlea's basilar membrane; this is the ... theory. This theory has difficulty account for how we hear ...-pitched sounds, which do not have such localized effects.
frequency theory
A second theory proposes that neural impulses, sent to the brain at the same frequency as the sound wave, allow the perception of different pitches. This is the ... theory. This theory fails to account for the perception of ...-pitched sounds, because individual neurons cannot fire faster than ... times per second.
gate-control, gate, spinal cord, small ,large brown
Melzack and Wall have proposed a theory of pain called the ... theory, which proposes that there is a neurological ... in the ... that blocks pain signals or lets them through. It may be opened by activation of (small/large) nerve fibers and closed by activation of (small/large) fibers or by information from the ...
kinesthesis; muscles; tendons; joints
The system for sensing the position and movement of body parts is called ... The receptors for this sense are located in the ..., ..., and ... of the body.
vestibular sense; semicircular canals; vestibular sacs
The sense that monitors the position and movement of the head (and thus the body) is the ... The receptors for this sense are located in the ... and ... of the inner ear.
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