AP Psych- Sensation and Perception

Sensation

Raw data from sensory receptors

Absolute Threshold

Minimum stimulation necessary to detect light, sound, taste, ect.

Just-noticeable difference

Minimum amount something must be changed in order for you to notice

Sensory adaptation

Reduction in sensitivity to stimulus after constant exposure to it

Weber’s Law

Quantifies how people perceive a change in a stimulus

Sensory Interaction

Process by which various sensory systems in the body work together to interpret and make out of the surrounding environment

Synesthesia

Neurological condition where stimulation of sensory pathways lead to involuntary experiences in another sensory pathway, see colors when they hear music

Transduction

Chemical changes that spark neural signals

Blind spot

Where the optic nerve goes to the head, where no rods or cones are

Visual accommodation

Ability of the eye to adjust focus by changing the lens

Nearsightedness

Distant objects are blurry

Rods

Detect black and white light

Cones

Detect colored light

Trichromatic theory

Color is created in visual perception because of the presences of three specialized color receptors, colors are made using 3 colors

Opponent-process theory

After images in color vision are created because of the pairing of opponent colors, red/green ect. AFTER IMAGINE

Fovea

Area of focus

Ganglion cells

Tied together to form the optic nerve

Monochromatic

no color- black and white

Dichromatic

only see two different colors

Prosopagnosia

Face blindness, rare condition where people can not recognize faces

Blindsight

Ability of people who are blind due to lesions in the primary visual cortex to respond to visual stimuli that they don’t consciously see

Place Theory

We hear different pitches because different sound waves trigger activity in different places along the basilar membrane- how we sense high pitches

Frequency Theory

Brain reads pitch by monitoring the frequency of neural impulses traveling up the auditory nerve, how we sense low pitches

Sound localization

determined by which ear gets the vibrations faster

Conduction hearing loss

damage to mechanics that send info to the cochlea

Sensorineural hearing loss

Damage to cochlea hairs

olfactory sense

sense of smell

Vestibular sense

Balance

Kinesthesis

Allows us to perceive out body movements and positions

Bottom-up processing

Lower level, never seen before

Top-down processing

High level, prior knowledge

Schemas

Mental framework that helps organize and interpret information

Perceptual set

Tendency to view things only in a certain way

Closure

Fill in gaps to create a whole object

Figure and ground

Organization of figures so that they stand out from their surroundings

Proximity

We group nearby things together

Binocular cues

2 eyes help us judge the distance of objects

Relative size

Small objects seem further away

Perceptual Constancy

Perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change

Interposition

An object blocking the view of another seems in front of it

Linear Perspective

Parallel lines that meet in the distance

Relativve motion

When we move, objects at rest appear to move

Stroboscopic movement

the brain perception of movement in a rapid series of slightly varying images (like cartoon)

Motion Parallax

Objects moving across the frame will appear to move a greater amount if they are closer to an observer.

Phi phenomenon

Illusion of movement created who 2 or more lights blink on and off