P 102, Exam 2

Sensation

Detection of physical energy by sensory organs

The brain’s interpretation of raw sensory data

Perception

External stimulus turned into neural activity

Transduction

The lowest level of a stimulus we can detect 50% of the time

Absolute Threshhold

The stronger the stimulus, the greater the change needed to detect

Weber’s Law

Hearing sounds when one sees/ tastes colours

Synesthesia

• What’s in our sensory field

• What was there a moment ago

• What we remember from our past

What our brain maps

Lets us choose which sensory outputs to focus on and turn off

Selective attention

Not detecting certain stimulus because we do not look for it

Inattention

• Brightness

• Hue

• Saturation

Three aspects colour depends on

The white portion of the eye

Sclera

Coloured portion of the eye, controls how much light is let in

Iris

The hole in the eye where light enters

Pupil

The transparent cells that focuses light on the back of the eye

Cornea

Curves to retract light onto back of the eye

Lens

The thin membrane at the back of the eye

Retina

Center, responsible for acuity

Fovea

• Rods

• Cones

Two types of retina receptors

Made of axons and is the nerve at the back of the eye

Axons

Allows us to detect lines and edges

Feature detector cells

Theory: colour vision is based on our sensitivity to three primary colours

• Blue

• Green

• Red

Trichromatic theory

Theory: colour vision is a function of complementary, opposing colours

Opponent process theory

Inability to perceive motion

Motion blindness

Object recognition deficit

Visual agnosia

• pitch

• Loudness

• Timbre

Three aspects sound relies on

The outer ear where we see skin cartilage and flap.

Pinna

Middle ear where the hammer, anvil, and stirrup vibrate and transmits sound to the inner ear

Ossicles

The inner ear that converts vibrations to neural activity. Has the Corti and basilar mambrane

Cochlea

Theory: specific location along the basilar membrane is also the specific tone and pitch

Place theory

Theory: the speed neurons fire action potentials reproduces the pitch.

Frequency theory

Failure of eardrum or ossicles of inner ear

Conductive deafness

Damage to audition nerve

Nerve deafness

Damage to hair cells in cochlea due to repeated loud noises

Nerve-induced hearing loss

Smell senses

Olfaction

Taste senses

Gustation

• Sweet

• Salty

• Sour

• Bitter

• Umami

The five basic tastes

• somatosensory (touch and pain)

• Proprioception (kinaesthetic sense)

• vestibular sense (equilibrium and balance)

The three tandem body systems

Responds to stimuli applied to the skin, temperature, and injury, through free nerve endings

Somatosensory

Helps us keep track of where we are and move effectively

Proprioception

Allows us to maintain equilibrium and maintain balance

Vestibular sense

• bottom up processing

• Top-down processing

To types in parallel processing

When our expectations influence our perceptions

Perceptual sets

Perceiving stimuli consistently accords conditions

Perceptual constancy

• relative size

• Texture gradient

• Interposition

• Linear perspective

• Height in plane

• Light and shadow

Monocular depth (one eye)

• Binocular disparity (depth)

• Binocular convergence (distance)

Binocular depth cues (both eyes)

• Muller-Lyre illusion

• Ponzu Illusion

• Horizontal-vertical illusions

• Ebbinghaus-Titchner illusions

Deceptions of perception

Processing many sensory inputs unconsciously

Subliminal information processing

A state of being unable to move just after falling asleep or right before waking up

Sleep paralysis

Our subjective experience of the world, our bodies, and our mental perspectives

Consciousness

• learning

• Long term memory

• Emotional memory recap

• Immune system health

• Insight/ problem solving

• Neural development and neural connectivity

• Energy conservation

Why we need sleep

What triggers people to fall asleep?

Increase in melatonin

• weight gain

• Depression

• Risk of cardiovascular problem

• Decreased immune system

Consequences with lack of sleep

• 1 - 4 (non-REM sleep)

• 5 (REM sleep)

Five stages of sleep

• shorter

• More thought-like

• Repetitive

• Daily task concerned

NREM dreams

Difficulty going to sleep/staying asleep/early waking

Insomnia

The rapid unexpected onset of sleep

Narcolepsy

Blockage of the airway during sleep

Sleep Apnea

Sudden waking episodes characterized by screaming, sweating, and confusion. Then followed by a deep sleep.

Night terrors

Where you move in the middle of the night but still unconscious.

Sleepwalking

• processing emotional memories

• Integrating new experiences with established memories

• Learning new strategies

• Simulating threatening events to cope

• Reorganizing/ consolidating memories

reasons why we dream

Theory: Dreams transform our sexual and aggressive instincts into symbols that represent wish fulfillment.

Freud’s Dream Protection Theory

Theory: dreams are a meaningful product of our cognitive capacities, which shape what we dream about.

Neurocognitive theory

Realistic perceptual experiences the absence of external stimuli

Hallucinations

Sense that our consciousness has left our body

Out of body experience (OBE)

The feeling of reliving a certain experiences

Deja Vu

A sense of unity or oneness with the world

Mystical experiences

A set of techniques that provides people with suggestions for alterations in behaviour

Hypnosis

Hypnosis theory: a persona approach to hypnosis is based on their attitudes, beliefs, and experiences

Sociocognitive theory

Hypnosis theory: hypnosis is based on a separating between personality functions that are normally well intergrated.

Dissociation theory

Contains chemicals similar to those found naturally in our brains

Psychoactive drugs

Decreases activity in the central nervous system

Depressants

Increases activity in the central nervous system

Stimulants

Sense of euphoria and decreased pain

Opiates

Dramatically altered perception, mood, and thoughts

Psychedelics

• Barbiturates

• Nonbabriturates

• Benzodiazepines

Three classes of selective hypnotics

Discovered classical conditioning through his dogs

Ivan Pavlov

• Neutral stimulus (NS)

• Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

• Unconditioned response (UCR)

• Conditioned stimulus (CS)

• Conditioned response (CR)

Five primary components Oc classical conditioning

The CR returns after time has passed

Spontaneous recovery

The CR returns in a novel setting different from the one in which the response was acquired

Renewal

When a conditioned stimulus creates a conditioned response

Stimulus generalization

When a conditioned response is exhibited only to certain stimuli

Stimulus discrimination

When learning is controlled by the consequences of the organism’s behaviour

Operant conditioning

If we’re rewarded for a response to a stimulus, we’re more like the to repeat that response in the future

The Law of Effect

Giving a stimulus

Positive reinforcement

Taking away a stimulus

Negative reinforcement

Any outcome that weakens the probability of a response

Punishment

• continuous reinforcement

• Partial reinforcement

Types of reinforcement in conditioning

The way organisms respond to a stimulus depending on what the stimulus means to it

Stimulus-organism-response (SOR)

Learning that is not directly observable

Latent learning

Learning by watching others. Not engaging with the trial and error to learn how to do the task

Observational learning

Learning by thinking about the problem and coming with an immediate answer

Insight learning

Activated when an organism observes or performs an action. Plays a role in having empathy

Mirror neurons

The tendency for animals to return to innate behaviours following repeated reinforcement

Instinctive drift

Techniques that say they will help you learn faster but have no scientific evidence to support it.

Learning fads

The lens

What is 4?

The Iris

What is 3?

The pupil

What is 2?

The optic nerve

What is 7?

The retina

What is 5?

The Fovea

What is in the red circle?