AP Pych Unit 1B

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering Topic 5 (Consciousness, Sleep Stages, Sleep Loss, and Dream Theories) and Topic 6 (Basic Sensation Concepts, Vision, Audition, Pain, Chemical Senses, and Body Senses).

Consciousness

Subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment.

Cognitive Neuroscience

The interdisciplinary study of brain activity linked with our mental processes.

Dual Processing

The principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks.

Blindsight

A condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing it.

Parallel Processing

Processing more than one aspect of a problem simultaneously; used for well-learned information, easy problems, and natural sensory processing such as vision.

Sequential Processing

Processing one aspect of a problem at a time; primarily used for difficult or new tasks.

Sleep

Periodic, natural loss of consciousness, distinct from unconsciousness resulting from other factors such as a coma or anesthesia.

Circadian Rhythm

Our internal biological clock that regulates bodily rhythms occurring on a 24-hour cycle.

REM Sleep

Rapid Eye Movement sleep; a recurring sleep stage during which muscles are relaxed, vivid dreams commonly occur, and other body systems are active.

Alpha Waves

Relatively slow brain waves characteristic of a relaxed, awake state.

NREM Sleep

Non-Rapid Eye Movement sleep; encompasses all sleep stages except for REM sleep.

Hypnagogic Sensations

Bizarre sensory experiences, such as a sudden jerk or feeling of falling, that occur during stage 1 sleep.

Sleep Spindles

Bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain wave activity that occur during NREM-2 sleep.

Delta Waves

Large, slow brain waves emitted by the brain during NREM-3 deep, slow-wave sleep.

Paradoxical Sleep

Another term for REM sleep, so named because the body is internally aroused with waking-like brain activity while the skeletal muscles remain deeply relaxed.

Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN)

A pair of cell clusters in the hypothalamus that controls circadian rhythm by signaling the pineal gland to adjust melatonin levels.

Melatonin

A sleep-inducing hormone secreted by the pineal gland that increases at night and decreases in the morning.

Insomnia

A sleep disorder characterized by ongoing difficulty falling or staying asleep, leading to chronic tiredness.

Narcolepsy

A sleep disorder marked by sudden, uncontrollable attacks of overwhelming sleepiness, risking sleep onset at dangerous moments.

Sleep Apnea

A sleep disorder characterized by repeatedly stopping breathing while asleep, resulting in fatigue and depression.

Night Terrors

A sleep disorder occurring during NREM-3 sleep marked by high arousal, doubled heart rate and breathing, sitting up or walking, and an appearance of being terrified with no morning recall.

REM Sleep Behavior Disorder

A disorder in which the normal motor paralysis of REM sleep fails to occur, causing the sleeper to twitch, talk, kick, or punch.

Dreams

Sequences of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind.

Information-Processing Theory

A dream theory proposing that dreams help sort out the day's experiences and consolidate them into long-term memories.

Activation-Synthesis Theory

A dream theory proposing that REM sleep triggers neural activity that evokes random visual memories, which our sleeping brain weaves into stories.

Sensation

The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive stimulus energies from our environment.

Perception

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.

Bottom-Up Processing

Sensory analysis that begins with sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information.

Top-Down Processing

Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, constructing perceptions by drawing on experience and expectations.

Transduction

The process of converting one form of energy or external stimulus into neural activity that the brain can interpret.

Absolute Threshold

The minimum stimulus energy needed to detect a particular stimulus more than 50% of the time.

Signal Detection Theory

A theory predicting when and how we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (analyzed via hits and false alarms), assuming there is no single absolute threshold.

Subliminal

Stimuli that fall below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Difference Threshold

The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time.

Sensory Adaptation

Diminished sensitivity to a stimulus as a consequence of constant stimulation by sensory receptor cells.

Hue

The dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light.

Intensity

The amount of energy in a light wave or sound wave, determined by amplitude, perceived as brightness or loudness.

Cornea

The clear, protective outer layer of the eye through which light first enters.

Iris

A ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye and controls the size of the pupil opening by dilating or contracting in response to light intensity.

Accommodation

The process by which the eye's lens changes its shape to focus near or far objects onto the retina.

Rods

Retinal photoreceptors that detect black, white, and gray, and are sensitive to movement and dim lighting.

Cones

Retinal photoreceptors clustered near the center of the retina that function in daylight or well-lit conditions, detecting fine detail and giving rise to color sensations.

Blind Spot

The point where the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a region devoid of photoreceptor cells.

Fovea

The central focal point in the retina around which the eye's cones cluster.

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory

The theory that the retina contains three types of color receptors sensitive to red, green, or blue, whose combination can produce perception of any color.

Opponent-Process Theory

The theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision and account for afterimage effects.

Audition

The sense or act of hearing.

Middle Ear

The chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that concentrate sound vibrations.

Cochlea

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

Conduction Hearing Loss

A less common type of hearing impairment caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

The most common form of hearing loss, caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor hair cells or to the auditory nerve.

Cochlear Implant

A medical device that converts sounds into electrical signals and stimulates the auditory nerve directly.

Place Theory

The pitch perception theory linking pitch to the specific place where the cochlea's basilar membrane is stimulated; explains high-pitched sounds best.

Frequency Theory

The pitch perception theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone.

Volley Principle

The principle that neural cells alternate firing in rapid succession to achieve a combined frequency higher than the single-cell limit of 1000 firings per second.

Nociceptors

Sensory receptors that respond to potentially damaging stimuli by sending impulses to the spinal cord, which relays the signal to the brain.

Gate-Control Theory

The theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological gate that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain via small and large nerve fibers.

Endorphins

Natural neurotransmitters that act as the body's internal pain killers by dampening painful responses.

Gustation

The chemical sense of taste, comprised of five basic sensations: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami.

Olfaction

The chemical sense of smell, initiated when odor molecules reach olfactory receptors and bypass the thalamus directly into the brain.

Kinesthesia

The movement sense equipped with millions of position and motion sensors in muscles, tendons, and joints to track body part positions and movement.

Vestibular Sense

The sense of body movement and position, including balance, regulated by the semicircular canals and vestibular sacs in the inner ear.

Sensory Interaction

The principle that one sense may influence another, such as how the smell of food impacts its taste.

McGurk Effect

A perceptual phenomenon occurring when auditory and visual inputs conflict, leading the brain to synthesize a third distinct perception.

Embodied Cognition

The influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and physical states on cognitive preferences, judgments, and social perceptions.

Synesthesia

A phenomenon where the brain circuits of two or more senses become joined, causing stimulation of one sensory pathway to involuntarily evoke another.