Sensation and Perception Retrieval Guide Flashcards

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards generated from lecture notes on sensation, perception, visual structures, auditory mechanics, and perceptual organization principles.

Consolidation Theory

Theory stating that dreams play a role in memory consolidation and storage.

Blindsight

A condition in which individuals with damage to their visual cortex respond to visual stimuli without consciously perceiving them.

Prosopagnosia

A neurological condition characterized by the inability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face.

Feature Detectors

Specialized neurons in the visual cortex that react to the strength of visual stimuli, responding to specific visual features such as shape, angles, edges, lines, and movement.

Parallel Processing

The ability of the brain to process many aspects of a visual scene at once, including color, motion, shape, and depth.

Nearsightedness

A visual condition where close objects appear clear, but far objects are blurry.

Farsightedness

A visual condition where distant objects are seen more clearly than close ones.

Rods

Specialized photoreceptors in the retina that work well in low-light conditions and are involved in vision in dimly lit environments.

Cones

Light-detecting photoreceptor cells concentrated near the center of the retina (fovea) that function in daylight and are responsible for color vision.

Order of Visual Information Processing

The sequential pathway of visual signals in the eye: Rods and Cones $\rightarrow$ Bipolar Cells $\rightarrow$ Ganglion Cells $\rightarrow$ Optic Nerves.

Ganglion Cells

Neurons in the retina that receive visual information from bipolar cells and transmit it to the brain.

Optic Nerve

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

Blind Spot

The point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a spot with no vision because no photoreceptor cells are located there.

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory

Theory proposing that the retina contains $3$ types of color receptors (sensitive to red, green, and blue) responsible for color perception.

Color-Deficient Vision

A visual condition caused by a lack of functioning red-or-green sensitive cones, or being born missing cones.

Opponent-Process Theory

Theory stating that retinal processes analyze color through $3$ sets of opponent complexes: red-green complex, blue-yellow complex, and black-white complex.

Afterimage

The continuation of a visual sensation after the removal of the original stimulus.

Accommodation

The process where the lens of the eye changes shape so you can focus on objects that are near or far.

Synesthesia

A condition meaning to "perceive together," in which two different senses are experienced at the same time.

Sensation

The detection process by which sensory receptors collect information from the environment and convert it into a signal that can travel to the brain.

Transduction

The process of changing stimulus energy into the electrochemical energy of neural impulses (for all senses except smell).

Perception

The interpretation process by which we select, organize, and interpret sensory information to recognize meaningful objects and events.

Bottom-Up Processing

Perceptual processing that starts with an incoming stimulus and works upward until a representation of the object is formed in the mind by assembling sensory input.

Top-Down Processing

Perceptual processing where perceptions are formed starting with a larger object, idea, model, or expectation before working toward detailed information.

Absolute Threshold

The smallest level of stimulus energy that can be detected at least $50\%$ of the time.

Signal Detection Theory

Theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid background stimulation.

Subliminal Sensation

Sensory stimuli that fall below an individual's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Cochlea

A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.

Place Theory

Theory explaining how we distinguish high-pitched sounds that possess a frequency exceeding $5{,}000\,\text{Hz}$.

Frequency Theory

Theory stating that we hear pitch based on how fast the hair cells vibrate in response to sound waves.

Sound Localization

The process of locating the source of a sound based on sound waves striking one ear quicker than the other.

Conduction Hearing Loss

Hearing loss caused by structural damage to the mechanical system of the ear.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Nerve deafness that occurs when the inner ear cochlea or the auditory nerve itself is not functioning properly.

McGurk Effect

A perceptual phenomenon demonstrating an interaction between visual and auditory processing in speech perception (such as perceiving "BA BA BA" vs "FA FA FA").

Pitch Perception

The brain's interpretation of the frequency of sound waves, determining whether a sound is high or low in tone.

Gestalt Psychology

An approach to psychology emphasizing the brain's tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes ("the whole is greater than the sum of its parts").

Figure-Ground Pattern

The tendency of the visual system to simplify a scene into the main focus object (figure) distinct from its background (ground).

Grouping

The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into groups (such as proximity, similarity, continuity, closure, area, and symmetry) to process environmental complexity.

Depth Perception

The ability to perceive the world in $3$ dimensions and judge the distance of objects.