AP Psychology Unit 7: Sensation/Perception

kinesthetic Sense

sense of body position and movement of body parts relative to each other

olfaction (sense of smell)

biochemical activities that trigger neural impulses on receptor membranes of tiny hairs of the nose

gustation (sense of taste)

5 "tastes"-- sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami located on specific areas of the tongue, this sense is most resistant to damage

skin senses

A sensation that deals with touch, pressure, warmth, cold, different body parts are more sensitive to pressure, touch is very important for humans for a number of psychological reasons as well

cocktail party phenomenon (selective attention)

ability to concentrate on 1 channel even with distractions in the background

inattentional blindness (elective inattention)

when you don't notice something right in front of you because you are focused on a different task

change blindness (selective inattention)

when you don't notice something right in front of you changed because you're focused on a different task

absolute threshold

minimum amount of stimulus required for one to realize that there's something there

difference threshold

the smallest amount of change that it would take to make someone notice a difference

signal detection theory

When you're waiting for something to happen and is motivated by it, you will think that something happened when it didn't

hit

signal detection theory: signal present, observer respond

correct rejection

signal detection theory: signal absent, observer did not respond

miss

signal detection theory: signal present and observer did not respond

false alarm

signal detection theory: signal absent, observer respond

light adaptation

going into the light and needing to adapt to it

dark adaptation

going into the dark and needing to adapt to the change

visible spectrum

range of nanometers from about 380(purple)-740(red)

brightness (amplitude)

how much light is in the sample of color

sensory transduction

what is the path of the waves that's bringing that image, sound, etc.

cornea

translucent outer coating of the eye

pupil

black hole through which light passes in the eye, will constrict or dilate

iris

colored muscle of the eye

lens

focus by bending and changing shape, accomodation, flips the image(brain flips it back), function of a part of the eye

retina

cones(located in the macula used for color vision) and rods(used for night vision), are photoreceptors of what part of the eye

optic nerve

nerve that exits the back of the eye through the retina and communicates with the occipital lobe at the back of your brain to identify what you're looking at, does this using the thalamus

fovea (cone center)

when light falls on this area of the eye, we can see the best, sharpest vision(acuity)

feature detector cells

specialized neurons in the viston cortex that responds to specific basic components of visual stimuli like edges, lines, colors, and motions, located in the brain

opponent process theory (E. Hering)

3 colored paris, red-green, blue-yellow, black-white

trichromatic theory (Young/Helmholtz)

3 color channels, these 3 individual colors can form all the different colors we see

frequency/wavelength

part of the sound wave that determines pitch

amplitude

part of the sound wave that determines loudness/volume/how far away the sound is

temporal

the sensory transduction of sound waves uses what lobe of the brain

pinna

ear flap, starts the process of funneling sound waves

auditory canal

where wax builds up, used to keep unwanted things out of your ear

eardrum (tympanic membrane)

sheath that covers entry way into the middle of your ear

ossicles

3 smallest bone in the body

oval window

flapping that opens and closes to let sound into the ear

cochlea

most important structure in the inner ear, shaped like a spiral snail shell, contains millions of hair cells that vibrate and correspond to certain pitches (basilar membrane)

auditory/cochlear nerve

Hooks up with the thalamus to go to the temporal lobe for recognition of the sound

vestibular organs

provides you with sense of balance, has fluid in semicircular canals, fluid shift

gate control theory

a neural "gate" in the spinal cord modulates pain signals before the reach the brain

phantom limb pain

real, painful sensation in a missing limb after amputation, caused by the brain's confused signals as it tries to find the limb

gestalt psychology

a series of grouping elements together to see a unified whole instead of parts

closure

If there are gaps in our perception, you will fill in the gaps in order to make sense of the thing (gestalt psychology)

similarity

our tendency to group similar things together (gestalt psychology)

proximity

objects closed to each other are perceived as a group forming a whole (gestalt psychology)

continuation

If a pattern has been established, the pattern will stay the same if continued (gestalt psychology)

subjective contours

perceived edges or shapes in a visual scene that aren't physically present in the image

perceptual set

You come to have a set way of viewing an illusion making it hard for you to see it any other way

perceptual constancies (shape, size, color)

when some element of an entity remains the same despite things around it changing

related random illusions

visual tricks that play with our perception of lines, shades, motion, etc.

cultural relativism

culture beliefs should be understood in their own context and not judged by another culture's

standards

retinal disparity (binocular depth cue)

your 2 retinas have 2 different angles, therefore you need both eyes to accurately see how far the object is

convergence (binocular depth cue)

Both eyes can tell and close in on object to tell its location as something gets closer

binocular depth cues

requires both eyes in order to see depth

monocular depth cues

depth cues that can be seen using one eye, you can cover one eye and still see the depth through these cues

linear perspective (monocular depth cue)

the illusion that two parallel lines in the distance will converge

texture gradient (monocular depth cue)

in an textured environment, the texture close to you is more pronounced

interposition (monocular depth cue)

the object that blocks another object is closer than the object that's being blocked

relative size (monocular depth cue)

the thing that is closer is larger than the thing that is further away

light and shadow (monocular depth cue)

gives depth

Height on a plane (monocular depth cue)

objects that are higher in the field(even though they're the same height) are perceived as further away