AP Psychology: Sensation and Perception

Study Guide

What is the energy source for vision?

Light

Bringing information from your environment to your brain is: perception or sensation

Sensation

Decreasing frequency and increasing wavelength is which color?

Red

Part of the eye that holds the lens in place

Ciliary body

Blood rich membrane that supplies blood to the retina

Choroid

Gives us our night vision: rods or cones?

Rods

What is the absolute threshold for touch?

The minimum intensity of a stimulus that can be detected by the skin, typically measured as the smallest pressure that can be felt.

Name of the theory that says we have an afterimage because when we stare at a colored object for a long time, our eye uses the opposite color on the color wheel to project the image

Opponent-process theory

When males are color blind, this cone system is not working. Which colors are they?

Red/Green

Which move quicker: sound waves or light waves?

Light waves

What is the trichromatic theory of vision and who was the theorist?

Helmholtz is the theorist; we have only three color cones and each color is a combination of those three: blue/red/yellow

Part of the eye that protects it and has fluid behind it; hurts if we scratch it

cornea

What are the three characteristics of sound?

Pitch, loudness, and timbre.

How is pitch measured?

Frequency

Another name for the outer ear; part we can see

Pinna

White part of the eye that protects it

Sclera

Part of the inner ear responsible for our balance

Semicircular canals

Explain image reversal on the retina

the image is upside down and reversed left to right

How is intensity measured?

Amplitude

Snail shaped part of the ear that has fluid and cilia in it

Cochlea

Review close text reading about evolution of blue and green eyes

Natural selection for eye color based on genetics

Explain heredity of eye color via genetics (chromosomes)

Controlled by genes on chromosomes, dominant and recessive traits

Color blindness in males and females

Males more likely due to X chromosome inheritance

Tip of the tongue is sensitive to this type of taste

Sweet

What is the energy source for taste?

Chemical molecules

These wave the chemical molecules into the nasal passageway

Cilia

Sides of the tongue behind the tip are sensitive to what taste

Sour

These take the chemical molecules from the cilia and pass them onto the olfactory nerve

olfactory receptors/tubes

Sides of the tongue behind the salty sides are sensitive to what taste

Bitter

Part of the ear connected with the nose

Eustachian tube

Third level (deepest) level of cutaneous system is sensitive to

Deep pressure

First level of cutaneous system is sensitive to

Light touch

How is timbre measured?

Complexity of sound waves

What is the energy source for hearing?

Sound waves

What is the absolute threshold for taste?

The smallest concentration that can be detected

This type of ESP claims that some people can tell the future for you

Precognition

Back of the tongue is sensitive to what taste

Bitter

Second level of cutaneous system is sensitive to

Temperature

What is the energy source for smell?

Chemical molecules

Three bones in the middle ear

Ossicles (Malleus, Incus, Stapes)

This theory controls why the pain stops hurting

Gate Control Theory

This is the best method for making the pain stop if we get hurt

Stimulate the gate (rubbing or distraction)

Professional name for taste

Gustation

This sense is your sense of balance

Vestibular sense

Are you born with size constancy, or do you learn about it from your environment?

Learn from environment

An artist who worked with light perspective in France in late 1800s

Georges Lemaitre

The experiment that demonstrates whether a child has depth perception or not

Visual cliff experiment

Top-down processing is this type of perception

Using knowledge to interpret sensory information

Professional name for smell

Olfaction

What is the absolute threshold for smell?

Smallest concentration detectable

Gestalt principle where we see an object because our eye closes the gaps

Closure

This means “good form” in German for the Simplicity principle

Pragnanz

This type of ESP claims that some people can speak to the dead for you

Mediumship

This theory explains how we detect a stimulus in our environment

Signal Detection Theory

This is what we call the difference between the first stimulus (detection) and the identification of that stimulus

Sensory discrimination

The weakest stimulus that can be detected 50% of the time is called the

Absolute threshold

What is the absolute threshold for vision?

The faintest light detectable

Professional name for hearing

Audition

What is the absolute threshold for hearing?

Faintest sound detectable

Explain Weber’s Law and give an example

The more intense a stimulus, the larger the change needed to notice it

Explain Gate Control theory

Pain is controlled by a “gate” in the spinal cord that can be opened or closed

Explain Kinesthetic sense

Awareness of body position and movement

Explain Vestibular sense

Awareness of balance and head position

Explain how afferent nerves arrive at the Parietal Lobe carrying sense of touch

Travel through the spinal cord to the somatosensory cortex

Light perception was first demonstrated by this Renaissance painter and later by this French painter

Leonardo da Vinci and Georges Lemaitre

Does reproduction of human pheromones work?

Unproven and largely ineffective

Gestalt principle where closeness of elements allows us to see an object

Proximity

Gestalt principle where we our eye will follow the straighter route

Continuity

Gestalt principle where we group objects that are alike, but it can create prejudice

Similarity

Gestalt principle of the Law of Pragnanz

The simplest solution is perceived

Gestalt principle of the Vase Illusion

Figure-ground reversal