MAIA KATHARINA SERO - BIOPSYCH MIDTERMS REVIEWER

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Sensation

The activation of receptors located in the eyes, ears, skin, nasal cavities, and tongue.

Sensory receptors

- specialized forms of neurons that are activated by different stimuli such as light and sound.

Perception

The interpretation and organization of what we have sensed.

Absolute threshold

- smallest amount of energy needed for conscious detection of a stimulus at least half the time it is present

Difference threshold

- (just noticeable difference)

- The point at which a stimulus is detectable half the time it is present.

Weber's Law of Just Noticeable Difference

-The law of difference between two (2) stimuli is constant.

Habituation

- occurs when the brain ignores a constant stimulus.

- Your brain is learning to ignore things that are constant, repetitive, and harmless.

- Because the stimulus isn't dangerous or useful, your nervous system stops paying attention to it so you can focus on more important things.

EXAMPLE:

Clothing on Skin: You notice the touch and texture of a shirt when you put it on, but you soon lose conscious awareness of it as your nervous system habituates to the constant tactile input.

Sensory adaptation

- occurs when the sensory receptors stop responding to a constant stimulus.

- is your sensory receptors (like your eyes, ears, skin, or nose) temporarily "getting tired" or tuning out continuous information so they can stay alert for new or changing information.

EXAMPLE:

Entering a Dark Room / Bright Sunlight: When you step into a dark movie theater or out into bright sunlight, your visual receptors (photoreceptors) adapt so your eyes can gradually adjust to the change in illumination.

Cornea

- protects the eye; focuses most of the light coming to the eyes.

Aqueous Humor

- watery fluid, supplies nourishment.

Iris

- controls the size of the pupil.

Pupil

- iris opening; size changes depending on the amount of light

Lens

- focusing process through visual accommodation on objects

Optic Nerve

- sends visual information to the brain

Vitreous Humor

- jelly-like fluid; nourishes the eye and gives its shape.

Retina

- light sensitive area at the back of the eye.

Rods

- non-color sensitivity to low levels of light

Cones

- color vision; sharpness of vision

Blind spot

- where the optic nerve leaves the eye

Dark adaptation

recovery (eye's sensitivity): in darkness after exposure to bright ights.

Light adaptation

recovery (eye's sensitivity): in light after exposure to darkness.

Trichromatic theory

- 3 cones

- Sensitive to different wavelengths

- Afterimages occur for a brief time

blue

short

green

medium

red

long

Opponent-process theory

- four primary colors with cones arranged in pairs: red and green, blue and yellow.

Color blindness

is caused by defective cones in the retina of the eye.

Monochrome color blindness

- no cone or has non-functioning cones; sees only shades of gray.

Red-green color blindness

- either red or green cones are not working.

size constancy

- the tendency to interpret an object as always being the same actual size, regardless of its distance.

Shape constancy

- the tendency to interpret the shape of an object as being constant, even when its shape changes on the retina.

Brightness constancy

- the tendency to perceive the apparent brightness of an object as the same even when the light conditions change

DEPTH PERCEPTION

- the ability to perceive the world in three (3) dimensions.

Monocular cues

- cues for perceiving depth: one eye only

Binocular cues

- cues for perceiving depth: both eyes

Muller-Lyer Illusion

- illusion of line length, causing lines of equal length to appear to be different

Moon illusion

- moon appears to be larger on the horizon.

Sound (physical)

The changes in pressure, air, or other medium.

Sound (perceptual)

The experience we have when we hear.

Hearing

is the predominant experience caused by sound waves.

Pitch or frequency

size of the pressure change; highness or lowness of the sound.

Amplitude

perceptual experience of loudness (vibration and magnitude).

Timbre

is the sound quality.

Conductive Hearing Loss

Any condition or disease that impedes the conveyance of sound in its mechanical form through the middle ear cavity to the inner ear.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

- inner ear or auditory nerve dysfunction.

- damage to the organ of Corti, inability of the hearing nerves; metabolic problem in the fluids of ear

Taste buds

- taste receptor cells, responsible for the sense of taste.

- line the walls of the papillae.

Papillae

bumps in the tongue

Basic tastes

sweet, sour, salty, and bitter; 'umami'.

Nose

Sense of smell; olfaction.

Olfactory receptor cells

they are located at the top of the nasal passage.

Cilia

- dozen little hairs, receives and create neural signals going to olfactory bulbs under the frontal lobes.

TOUCH

It keeps bodily fluids and germs out; It receives and transmits information from the outside world to the central nervous system.

20 sq. ft.

- biggest sense organ.

Pacinian corpuscles

Respond to pressure.

Nerve endings around the hair

sensitive to pain and touch (temperature, pressure)

Skin senses

- sense touch (massaged), pressure (soft, hard), temperature (hot, cold), and pain.

Kinesthetic senses

- Sense the location of the body parts in relation to the ground and to each other through proprioceptors that are responsive to pressure inside

- is our body's ability to perceive its own movement, weight, and limb positions without relying on sight.

Vestibular senses

- sense movement and body position

Functional segregation

Different areas of the brain specialize in processing different types of sensory information.

Parallel processing

Different aspects of information can be processed simultaneously by separate neural pathways.

Example:

When looking at an object, different neural systems can process its:

- shape

- color

- movement

- location

at the same time.

Sound

A form of physical energy produced by vibrations.

Major structures:

Outer ear → middle ear → inner ear → auditory nerve → brainstem → thalamus → auditory cortex

Cochlea

The inner-ear structure that converts sound vibrations into neural signals.

Basilar membrane

A structure within the cochlea that responds differently to different sound frequencies.

Auditory cortex

The cortical area involved in processing auditory information.

Sound localization

The ability to determine where a sound originates.

Somatosensory System

Processes sensations involving:

- touch

- pressure

- temperature

- pain

- body position

Cutaneous receptors

Sensory receptors located in the skin.

Dermatomes

Areas of the body associated with particular spinal nerves.

Primary somatosensory cortex

The cortical area that receives and processes much of the body's somatosensory information.

Somatosensory pathways

The two major pathways carrying somatosensory information toward the brain.

Pain

A sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage.

Neuropathic pain

Pain resulting from abnormal functioning or damage within the nervous system.

Olfaction

The sense of smell.

Olfactory receptors

Receptors that detect chemicals associated with odors.

Olfactory glomeruli

Structures in the olfactory bulb where information from olfactory receptor neurons is organized.

Taste receptor proteins

Proteins involved in detecting different taste stimuli.

Gustation

The sense of taste

Selective attention

The ability to focus on some sensory information while ignoring other

information.

Change blindness

Failure to notice changes in a visual scene.

Simultanagnosia

Difficulty perceiving more than one object at a time.

sensorimotor system

controls movement through constant interaction between sensory information and motor output.

Hierarchical organization

- The sensorimotor system is organized in levels.

- Higher levels issue general commands while lower levels carry out specific actions.

- Information is processed through successive levels, with higher levels dealing with increasingly complex aspects of sensory information.

Motor output is guided by sensory input

Movement is continuously adjusted according to sensory feedback.

Learning changes sensorimotor control

Practice changes how movements are controlled and where control occurs in the nervous system.

Sensory feedback

- Information about the current condition of the body and environment that helps guide movement.

Example:

When carrying a bag, your muscles continuously receive information about its weight and your arm position. Your nervous system adjusts your muscle activity accordingly.

Posterior parietal association cortex

Important for using sensory information to guide movement.

Frontal eye field

Involved in the control of eye movements.

Apraxia

Difficulty performing learned purposeful movements despite adequate strength and understanding.

Contralateral neglect

Failure to respond to or be aware of stimuli on the side of space opposite a brain lesion.

Dorsolateral prefrontal association cortex

Important for planning and controlling complex behavior.

Premotor cortex

- Particularly involved when movements are guided by sensory stimuli.

- is especially involved in movements guided by sensory information, while the supplementary motor area becomes more prominent for well-practiced sequences.

Supplementary motor area

Important for internally generated and well-practiced sequences.

Cingulate motor areas

Motor-related areas associated with motivation and action.

Mirror neurons

Neurons that respond both when an individual performs an action and when the individual observes a similar action.

Primary motor cortex

- A major cortical area involved in controlling voluntary movement.

- May encode the intended endpoint of a movement rather than simply the movement itself.

Cerebellum

is involved in:

- coordination

- motor learning

- fine-tuning movement

- timing of movement

was more active during newly learned finger-movement sequences than well-practiced sequences, supporting its role in motor learning.

Basal Ganglia

are a collection of interconnected nuclei involved in:

- movement modulation

- motor learning

- reward-related response learning

- some cognitive functions

They form loops between the cortex and thalamus.

Muscle spindle

A receptor that detects muscle length.

Golgi tendon organ

A receptor that provides information about muscle tension.

Stretch reflex

A reflex response to the stretching of a muscle.