Sensation and perception

Transduction

Conversion of one form of energy to another. Ex: chemical to electrical

Sensory Adaptation

Brain getting used to stimuli that makes us uncomfortable. Ex: getting used to cold water

Sensory Interaction

Senses are tied together to create stimulus brain detects. Ex: need smell to taste

McGurk effect

What you see clashes with hearing. Bah-fah

Absolute threshold 

Minimum intensity of a stimulation that must occur to experience a sensation

Difference threshold

The smallest possible difference between 2 stimuli, can be detected ½ the time. JND (just noticeable difference)

Webers law

Perception of stimulus intensity grows at a slower rate than actual physical intensity.

Cornea

Protective coating of eye

Pupil

Opening in the eye

Iris

Controls amount of light entering eye, color

Lens

Focuses incoming light onto the retina. Accommodation is when it thickens, bends, thins.

Retina

Where the photo receptors that signal to the brain are

Rods

Don’t detect color, light sensitive, PERIPHERAL

Cones

Detect color, CENTER. packed in the fovea

Fovea

Center most part of retina, sharpest vision area.

Trichromatic theory

We have cones that only detect red, green, and blue

Opponent processs

We see various pair of color. (Red-green)(blue-yellow)(white-black)

Visual deficiencies

Nearsighted: eyeball is too long. Farsighted: eyeball is too scrunched.

Color blindness

Monochromatism: don’t seee color, only see gray. Dichromatism: not seeing 2 colors

Pitch

Frequency of wave

Loudness

Amplitude of wave

Pinna

Outer ear, collects sound waves

Auditory canal

Outer ear. Tunnel that sound waves travel through 

Tympanic membrane (eardrum)

Drum where vibration hits heading to brain

Ossicles

Hammer, anvil, stirrup. Pass info from eardrum to cochlea 

Eustachian tubes

Connects mouth to ears, ear pressure.

Cochlea

Filled with fluid and tiny hair. Then vibrate to make electrical stimuli.

Basilar membrane

Hairs connected to cochlea

Semicircular canal

Helps with balance

Auditory Pathway to brain

Electrical impulse is sent from hair to auditory nerve to the thalamus. Then gets sent to temporal lobe.

Volley theory

High frequency sounds cause cells to bounce sound waves back and forth.

Place theory

At high sound frequency, pitch differs based on the area of the basilar membrane hit

Frequency theory

Rate at which vibration occurs effects the frequency brain interprets, affects pitch

Conduction deafness

Anything along the earpath is damaged (outer, middle ear)

Sensorineural

Damage to hair cells in cochlea, need cochlear implant

Tasters

Depend on amount of fungifor papillae (taste bud)

3 types of touch recpetors

Pressure, temperature, pain 

Gate control theory

Pain controlled by a series of gates in the spinal cord. Open = pain, closed = no pain

Kinesthetic receptor

Location and position. Proprioceptors - located in muscles and joints

Vestibular

Balance and equilibrium. Semicircular canals and vestibular sacs.

Bottom Up Processing

Sensation goes to higher levels for processing. Not influenced by expectation or experience

Top Down Processing

Info at high levels influences the lower levels. Expectations affect our perception

Motion Parallax

Near objects move quickly in opposite direction, far objects move slowly

Induced movement

When you’re in the car, you see another car move, and feel like you are moving

Priming

Brain is exposed to one sensation, lets the brain explain what happens next easier.

Inattentional blindness

Not easy to see something you don’t look for

Selective attention

When brain is focused on one thing so it doesn’t pay attention to sourroundings 

Gestalt principles

Proximity, similarity, continuity, closure, figure/ground.

Proximity

Elements placed together are perceived as a group

Similarity 

Object that look similar to one another are seen as a group or pattern

Continuity

Eye moves through one object onto another, like it never stops

Closure

Filling in gaps

Binocular Depth Cues

Binocular/retinal disparity: the Brian has 2 different but overlapping retinal images - helps compute the distances of objects.

The more different = further, more similar = closer

Interposition/occlusion

Near objects block further objects

Relative size

Far objects appear smaller

Linear prspective

Parallel lines converge