AP Psychology Unit IV, Sensation and Perception

Sensation

The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represents stimulus energies from our environment.

Perception

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

Bottom-Up Processing

Analyst that begins with sensory receptors And works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information.

Top-Down Processing

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

Selective Attention

The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.

inattentional Blindness

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

Change Blindness

Failing to notice changes in the environment.

Transduction

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

Psychophysics

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

Absolute Threshold

The minimum stimulation needed to direct a particular stimulus 50% of the time.

Signal Detection Theory

Hey Siri, predicting how, and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus, a mid background stimulation. Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold in that direction that depends partly on a persons experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness.

Subliminal

Below one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one’s perception, memory, or response.

Difference Threshold

The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time. (We experienced the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference).

Weber’s Law

The principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum and percentage rather than a constant amount.

Sensory Adaptaion

Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.

Perceptual Set

A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

Wavelength

The distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next period electromagnetic wavelength vary from the short lips of cosmic raise to the long pulses of radio transmission.

Hue

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

Intensity

The amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as the term by the waves amplitude.

Iris

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

Lens

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

Accommodation

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

Retina

Delight sensitivity, inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the process of visual information.

Rods

Retinal receptors, that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don’t respond.

Cones

Retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina that function in daylight or in well conditions. The cones detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations.

Optics Nerve

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

Blind Spot

The point of which the optic nerve leaves to eye, creating a “blind“ spot because no receptor cells are located there.

Fovea

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

Feature Detectors

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

Parallel Processing

The processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain’s natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision. Contrast with the step-by-step processing of most computers and conscious problem-solving.

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic (Three-Color) Theory

The theory that the retina contains three different color receptors, one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue which, when stimulated in combination, can produce a perception of any color

Opponent-Process Theory

The theory that opposing retinal processes enable color vision. For example, some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red; stimulated by red and inhibited by green.

Figure-Ground

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

Grouping

The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.

Depth Perception

The ability to see objects in three dimensions, although the images that strike the retina or two dimensional; allows us to judge distance.

Visual Cliff

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

Binocular Cues

Depth, cues, such as retinal, disparity, that depend on the use of two eyes.

Retinal Disparity

A binocular cue for perceiving depth: by comparing images from the retina, and the two eyes, the brain compute distance to greater disparity between the two images, the closer object.

Monocular Cues

Depth, cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone.

Phi Phenomenon

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

Perceptual Constancy

Perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent shapes, size, brightness, and color) even as illumination and retinal images change.

Color Constancy

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

Perceptual Adaptaion

Envision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Audition

The sense or act of hearing.

Frequency

The number of complete wavelength that has a point in a given time.

Pitch

A tones experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency.

Middle Ear

The chamber between the Eardrum in the cochlea Containing three tiny bones, left (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) That concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea’s Oval window.

Cochlea

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

Inner Ear

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

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Hearing loss caused by damage to cochlea‘s receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness.

Conduction Hearing Loss

Hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conduct sound waves to the cochlea.

Cochlear Implant

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

Place Theory

and hearing, the theory that links the pitch, we hear with the place where the cochlea’s membrane is stimulated.

Frequency 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 since it’s pitch.

Gate-Control Theory

The theory that the spinal cord contains a Neurological “ Gate” that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass onto to the brain. The “gate” is open by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain.

Kinesthesia

The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.

Vestibular Sense

The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance.

Sensory Information

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

Embodied Cognition

In psychological science, the influence of body sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments.