AP psych sensation and perception (easier cards)

Afferent neurons

Accept sensory signal (Take messages to interneurons)

The senses

Sight, audition, gustation (taste), somatosensation (touch), vestibulation (balance), olfaction (smell), kinesthesia (body awareness)

Threshold

The point when we detect a stimulus

Sensory neuron

Stimulated at threshold

Absolute threshold

Minimum stimulation needed for you to detect it 50 percent of the time

Absoulte threshold vs age

Absolute threshold increases with age

The graph (stimulus intensity vs percentage seen)

X axis - Stimulus intensity, Y axis - percentage seen (they may flip the axis

Subliminal messaging

Below the threshold

Priming

Influencing someone to believe something

Backmasking

Rock songs were played backwards, and people therefore claim these songs were spurring demonic messages to kids subliminally

Signal

Sensation

Detection

Picking up the signal

Just Noticieable Difference/Difference Threshold

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

Weber’s law

The difference threshold has to be measured in percentage

Eye test (where they change the lenses)

JND

Sensory adaptation/Neural adaptation

Neurons stop firing upon constant stimulation, invouluntary

How do you reverse adaptation?

You have to leave the setting for it to go away

Habituation

Vouluntary, happens through the Reticular Formation

How do you revers Habituation

You can bring it back constantly and instantly

Gustation

Taste

Six tastes

Bitter, Sweet, Salwy, Sour, Umami (savoury, meat), Oleogustus (oily/fatty)

What is not a taste

Spicy

What is the common theme of transduction

Hair

Pheremones

Odorless chemicals which signal a response from the opposite gender

How are phreomones absorbed

Vomeronasal organ

Which 2 senses are linked together

Taste and smell

Gate Control theory

The “gate” restricts pain, humans can open it or close it

Gate opened

You feel pain

Gate Closed

You don’ feel pain

Focusing attention (pain management)

Why we rub our shoulders - helps control pain

Hypnosis

Pain management strategy

Semi-circular canals

Found in the inner ear, help with balance

Nystagmus

The eye rapidly twitches to maintain balance

Sensory interdependency

Senses don’t function on their own, they rely on each other

Cornea

Bends light to enter the pupil

Iris

Ring around the pupil which controls its size

Pupil

Hole in the eye through which light travels through

lens

Changes shape to focus light on the retina

Glaucoma

Coating on the lens of the eye

Rods and cones

Photoreceptor cells, release neurotransmitters

Cones

See vision in color, used for bright vision

Rods

Used in dim light, used for periphery vision

Fovea

Central part of the Retina

Blind spot

Caused by the optic nerve, in your peripheral vision

If the vision is on the left side of the eye, then where does it get processed

Left side of the brain

If the vision is on the right side of the eye, where does it get processed

Right side of the brain

Nearsighted

Cannot see far away, eye is too long, image forms in front of the retina

Farsighted

Cannot see things up close, the eye is too short, the image forms behind the retina

Movement aftereffects

Feature detectors still firing after the stimuli has stopped

What are the 2 color vision theories

Trichromatic theory and Opponent-processing theory

Trichromatic theory

retina contains 3 color receptors - red, blue, and green

Opponent processing theory

When you see one color, the opposite color from that is dimmed

Color blindness

Red/green is the most common, it is genetic, most common in males

Pinna

Relays sound into the eardrum

What determines volume

Amplitude of the wave

What determines pitch

Frequency of the wave

Place theory

Specific regions on the Cochlea are stimulated when high frequencies or low frequencies are fired

Frequency theory

Sounds are grouped together (high or low frequency) and then they are sent to the brain in chunks

Volley theory

Whatever part of the Cochlea is able to absorb the sound does, and these sounds are immediately relayed to the brain

Sound localization

Happens through analyzing the delay of sound between 2 eardrums

Sensorineural hearing loss

Damage to the Basillar membrane (hairs inside cochlea)

Treatment for Sensorineural hearing loss

Cochlear implant - it automatically converts sound waves into electrical impulses

Tinnitus

Symptom of sensorineural hearing loss

Conduction hearing loss

Damage to the eardrum or the bones inside the ear

Correction to Conduction hearing loss

Surgery or hearing aids (hearing aids amplify the soft waves so people could hear)

Which brain parts is useful for habituation

RAS

Dichotic listening

Recieving different stimuli in 2 ears, one ear takes all the sensory messaging

Selective inattention

Ignoring sensory information when it isn’t important

Change blindness

Missing a change in stimuli when there is a break in the field of vision

Bottom up processing

Sensory information to perception, the brain takes in sensory information and combines it into a final interpretation

Top Down processing

Used for optical illusions because it’s not completely accurate. Starts with prior knowledge and experiences to infer what something is

Experiment with 2 curves (bottom one is longer)

Wundt-Jastrow illusion

How do you percieve depth

Brightness, light, shading

Eleanor Gibson

Created the Visual Cliff experiment

Retinal Disparity

it compares images between both eyes and the brain can compute distance

Convergence

Extent to which the eyes converge inward (cross eye) that indicates something is very close

Relative size

Faraway things seem smaller

Linear perspective

Paralell lines converge with distance

Interposition

If one object is blocking another, it looks closer

Relative Clarity

Hazier objects seem more distant, clearer ones seem closer

Texture gradient

Using a pattern to give the impression of depth 0 objects farther away seem smaller and more densely packed

Relative motion

Things further away go the same direction as you

Stroboscopic movement

Rapid series of slightly varying images make you perceive motion (how videos work)

Phi phenomonon

Movement appears when 2 close lights blink fast

Lilac Chaser

An Illusion for Phi Phenomenon

Shape Constancy

Familliar objects stay in constant shape even when retinal images change

Door opening

Example of shape constancy - the door is percieved as a rectangle even when it is really trapezoidal

Size constancy

We know that familiar objects stay the same size

Color constancy

Percieving objects as having a constant color (but lighting can play tricks on your brain)

What does percieved lightness depend on

Relative luminance - light an object reflects relative to its surroundings

Perceptual set (Mental set)

Our minds can be tricked to see or think certain things

Context Clues