AP Psychology Vocab - Sensation & Perception

The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous systems receive and represent stimulus from our environment.

Sensation

Sensory nerve endings that respond to stimuli.

Sensory Receptors

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.

Perception

Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brains integration of sensory information.

Bottom Up Processing

Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.

Top Down Processing

The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.

Selective Attention

Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.

Inattentional Blindness

Failing to notice changes in the environment.

Change Blindness

Conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain and interpret.

Transduction

The study of relationship between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.

Psychophysics

The minimum stimulus energy needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time.

Absolute Threshold

A theory detecting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid background stimulation. Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a persons experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness.

Single Detection Theory

Below ones absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Subliminal

The minimum difference between 2 stimuli required for detection 50% of the time.

Difference Threshold

The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing ones perceptions, memory, or response.

Priming

The principle that, to be perceived as different, 2 stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage.

Webers Law

Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of consent stimulation.

Sensory Adaption

The controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.

Extrasensory Perception

The study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis.

Parapsychology

The distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next.

Wavelength

The dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the colors blue, green, and so forth.

Hue

The amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which influences what we perceive as brightness or loudness.

Intensity

The eyes clean, protective outer layer, covering the pupil and iris.

Cornea

The adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters.

Pupil

A ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil.

Iris

The transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina.

Lens

The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of nervous that began the processing of visual information.

Retina

The process by which the eyes lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina.

Accommodation

Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray, and are sensitive to movement; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision.

Rods

Retinal receptors that are concentrate near the center of the retina and that function in the daylight or in well-lit conditions — detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations.

Cones

The nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain.

Optic Nerve

The point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye where no receptor cells are located.

Blind Spot

The central focal point in the retina, around which the eyes cones cluster.

Fovea

The theory that the retina contains 3 different types of color receptors — one most sensitive to red, one to green, and one to blue — which when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color.

Young Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory

The theory that opposing retinal processes enable color vision.

Opponent Process Theory

Nerve cells in the brains visual cortex that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement.

Feature Detectors

Processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brains natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision.

Parallel Processing

An organized whole.

Gestalt

The organization of the visual field into objects stand out from their surroundings.

Figure Ground

The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.

Grouping

The ability to see objects in 3 dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance.

Depth Perception

A laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.

Visual Cliff

A depth cue, such as retinal disparity that depends on the use of 2 eyes.

Binocular Cue

A binocular cue for perceiving depth by comparing retinal images from the 2 eyes, the brain computes distance.

Retinal DIsparity

A depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone.

Monocular Cue

An illusion of movement created when 2 or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession.

Phi Phenomenon

Perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change.

Perceptual Constancy

Perceiving objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.

Color Constancy

The ability to adjust to changed sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Perceptual Adaptation

The sense or act of hearing.

Audition

The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time.

Frequency

A tones experienced highness or lowness depends on frequency.

Pitch

The chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing 3 tiny bones that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea’s oval windows.

Middle Ear

A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear; sound waves traveling through the cochlear fluid trigger nerve impulses.

Cochlea

The innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs.

Inner Ear

Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochleas receptor cells or to the auditory nerves.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

A less common form of hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.

Conduction Hearing Loss

A device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea.

Cochlear Implant

In hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place the cochleas membrane is stimulated.

Place Theory

In hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch.

Frequency Theory

The theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological “gate” that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on the brain. The “gate'“ is opened by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in large fibers or by information coming from the brain.

Gate Control Theory

The sense of smell.

Olfaction

Our movement sense — our system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.

Kinesthesia

Our sense of body movement and position that enables our sense of balance.

Vestibular Sense

The principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste.

Sensory Interaction

The influence of body sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments.

Embodied Cognition