Sensations and Perceptions Test

Parietal Lobe

• Processes sensory information related to touch, pressure, temperature, and pain. Also involved in spatial orientation and body awareness.

• Examples:

  • Identifying the texture of an object by touch.

  • Navigating through a crowded room without bumping into people.

Occipital Lobe

• Responsible for processing visual information. Located at the back of the brain.

• Examples:

  • Recognizing faces in a photograph.

  • Interpreting the movement of objects in your peripheral vision.

Hippocampus

• Involved in forming, organizing, and storing long-term memories. Plays a role in spatial navigation.

• Examples:

  • Remembering where you parked your car.

  • Recalling details of your first day of school.

Gustation

• The sense of taste, processed by taste buds on the tongue, which detects five primary tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.

• Examples:

  • Identifying the sweetness of a cupcake.

  • Distinguishing between the bitter taste of coffee and the sourness of lemon.

Vision

• The sense of sight, processed by the occipital lobe, involving the perception of light, color, shape, and motion.

• Examples:

  • Watching a bird fly across the sky.

  • Recognizing traffic lights and their colors.

Kinesthesis

• The sense of body movement and positioning, providing feedback on the position and movement of body parts.

• Examples:

  • Knowing the position of your arms when playing a musical instrument.

  • Balancing on one foot without looking down.

Touch

• The sense involving pressure, pain, temperature, and vibration, processed primarily by the parietal lobe.

• Examples:

  • Feeling the heat from a hot cup of coffee.

  • Noticing the texture of a wool sweater.

Perceptual Adaptation

• The brain’s ability to adjust to significant changes in perception over time.

• Examples:

  • Wearing upside-down glasses. Initially disorienting, but your brain adjusts over time to make vision function normally.

Perceptual Sets

• The idea that our expectations shape what we perceive.

• Examples:

  • When shown a blurry image and told it’s a dog, you'll likely perceive it as a dog, even if it could be interpreted as a cat.

Perceptual Constancy

•  The ability to recognize objects as the same despite changes in light, angle, or distance.

• Examples:

  • A stop sign remains the same color even when viewed in different lighting conditions (daylight or night).

Monocular Cues

• Visual cues that require only one eye to perceive depth and distance.

• Examples:

  • Things that overlap: The object in front looks closer.

  • Smaller objects look farther away: A person far away looks smaller than one nearby.

  • Lines meeting in the distance: Roads appear to get closer as they stretch into the distance.

  • Shadows and light: Shadows help with identifying the shape and size of objects.

Accommodation

• The process by which the lens of the eye changes shape to focus on objects at different distances.

• Examples:

  • Shifting focus from your phone to a distant tree requires adjustment of the lens to focus clearly on both.

Adaptation

• The process of getting used to changes in the environment over time.

• Examples:

  • Entering a dark room and adjusting to see better after a few minutes.

Linear Perspective

• The visual cue that allows us to perceive depth, where parallel lines appear to converge in the distance.

• Examples:

  • The visual narrowing of a road or railroad tracks in the distance.

Opponent-Process Theory

• The theory that certain color pairs are processed in opposing ways by the brain (e.g., red-green, blue-yellow, black-white). Staring at one color for too long can lead to an afterimage of the opposite color.

• Examples:

  • Staring at a red, white, and blue flag and then seeing a green, black, and yellow afterimage.

Just Noticeable Difference (JND)

• The smallest detectable difference in a stimulus that can be noticed.

• Examples:

  • The point at which you first notice a slight increase in the volume of music.

Absolute Threshold

• The smallest amount of stimulus needed for detection.

• Examples:

  • The faintest sound you can hear, such as the ticking of a clock in a silent room.

  • The smallest light you can see, like a candle in the dark.

Conduction

• The process by which sound travels through the ear to the brain. Issues with conduction can cause hearing loss.

• Examples:

  • Earwax blocking the ear canal can interfere with sound transmission, making hearing more difficult.

Convergence

• When your eyes turn inward to focus on something close to your face, providing depth information.

• Examples:

  • Focusing on a pencil near your nose causes your eyes to turn inward.

Rods

• Specialized cells in the retina that help with seeing in low-light conditions.

  • Example: In a dim room, ___ help detect shapes and movement.

Cones

• Specialized cells in the retina responsible for color vision and sharp detail in bright light.

  • Example: Picking out a red shirt from your closet using your ____.

Vestibular System

• The system located in the inner ear that helps control balance and spatial orientation.

• Examples:

  • After spinning around, the _______ helps maintain balance and orientation.

Thalamus

• The brain’s “relay station” that receives sensory information (except for smell) and directs it to the appropriate areas of the brain.

• Examples:

  • Damage to the _____ can impair sensory processing, even if the sensory organs are functioning properly.

Transduction

• The process by which physical stimuli (like light, sound, or touch) are converted into electrical signals the brain can interpret.

• Examples:

  • The skin senses heat, and this information is converted into electrical signals sent to the brain.

Sensory Adaptation

• The reduction in sensitivity to a constant stimulus over time, helping us focus on new or changing stimuli.

• Examples:

  • Becoming unaware of a watch on your wrist after wearing it for a while.

Difference Threshold

• The smallest change in a stimulus that a person can detect.

• Examples:

  • Noticing a change in sweetness between two cereals.