Sensation and Perception Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and definitions related to sensation, perception, vision, and hearing.

Webers Law

The principle that two different stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage

Accomodation

The process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus images of near or far images

Rods

The part of the eye that sees black and white

Cones

The part of the eye that sees color

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic

The theory that the retina contains three different types of color receptors

Opponent- Process Theory

The theory that opposing retinal processes enable color vision

Parallel processing

Processing multiple aspects of a stimulus or problem simultaneously

Frequency

The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time

Sensory adaptation

When your senses become less sensitive to a constant, unchanging stimulus over time

Priming

When exposure to something influences how you think or respond to something later, without realizing it

Signal detection theory

A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus

Absolute threshold

The minimum stimulus energy needed to detect a particular stimulus, 50 percent of the time

Conduction hearing loss

Caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.

Transduction

Conversion of one form of energy to another

Perception

When our brain organizes and interprets sensory info to organize objects

Difference Threshold

The smallest difference between two stimuli that a person can detect 50% of the time

Place theory

The theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated

Pitch

A tone's experienced highness or lowness depends on frequency

Bottom-up processing

Processing info without past experiences or details

Top-down processing

Higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perception, putting it into a bigger picture

Frequency theory

The theory that the rate of nerve impulses travelling up the auditory nerve maintains the frequency of a tone

Sensorineural hearing loss

Caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerve