Sensation and Perception (chunk c)

Perception

How our brain interprets and makes sense of the information we sensed

Transduction

the conversion from sensory stimulus to action potential

Absolute threshold

the minimum amount of stimulus energy needed for the stimulus to be detected

Difference threshold

detecting something that has changed (just noticeable difference)

Bottom-up processing

when your brain tries to piece together all the bits of information with no prior expectations

Top-down processing

when you have an expectation of what you’re experiencing and use it to guide your interpretation

Weber’s law

the amount of stimulus you start with determines the amount of change needed for it to be noticed

Cochlea

snail-shaped structure inside ear that contains the sensory receptor cells of the auditory system (hair cells)

ossicles

3 tiny bones in middle ear called malleus, incus, and stapes

What do monaural and binaural cues do?

they localize sounds (place where a sound is coming from)

sensory adaptation

when a sensory stimulus is constant, we stop noticing it

Saccades

tiny eye vibrations that prevent the image on the retina from staying the same, thus preventing sensory adaptation

Rods

receptors in the retina that detect black & white and work best in low lights

Cones

receptors in the retina that detect color and work best in high lights

Blind spot

part of the retina that connects to the optic nerve, because there aren’t any photoreceptors there

Proprioception

tells you where your body is in space (works with kinesthesia and vestibular sense)

vestibular sense

contributes to our ability to maintain balance and body posture

kinesthesia

perception of body’s movement through space

Sensation

when information from the external world goes into your brain; sensory information is detected by a sensory receptor

Illusion

when sensory input says one thing but our interpretation says something else

Fovea

where the lens of eyeball focuses images

retina

light-sensitive lining of the eye

Synesthesia

the blending/crossing of senses (e.g. you can hear colors)

Gestalt Psychology

based on the idea that the whole is different from the sum of its parts

Similarity Principle

things that are alike tend to be grouped together in our brains

Proximity Principle

things that are close together tend to be grouped together in our brains

Principle of closure

organizing perceptions into complete objects rather than a series of parts

Depth perception

ability to perceive spatial relationships in 3-D space; learned skill

Muller-Lyer illusion

illusion where there are two arrows/lines of equal length but one of them may appear longer. cultures with lots of corners tend to fall for the illusion

Pattern perception

our ability to discriminate among different figures and shapes

perceptual hypothesis

educated guess used to interpret sensory information