Vision and Hearing Overview

A collection of vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts from the lecture notes on vision and hearing.

Vision

The ability to see; involves ~30% of the cerebral cortex.

Photoreceptors

Cells in the retina (rods and cones) that respond to light and convert it to electrical signals.

Fovea

The center of the retina containing only red and green cones, responsible for fine detail vision.

Macula

The area surrounding the fovea; important for tasks like reading and driving.

Strabismus

A condition where the eyes do not properly align with each other, leading to poor depth perception.

Cochlea

A spiral structure in the inner ear that processes sound waves and converts them to electrical signals.

Basilar membrane

A membrane in the cochlea that is tuned to different frequencies of sound.

Auditory cortex

The area of the brain responsible for processing sound, located in the temporal lobe.

Depth perception

The ability to perceive the world in three dimensions and gauge distances between objects.

Center-surround antagonism

A visual processing mechanism where ganglion cells respond differently to light in the center versus the edge of receptive fields.