sensation & perception

Sensation

Stimuli coming through senses; a physical feeling or perception resulting from something that happens to or comes into contact with the body.

Perception

Process of giving meaning to the message (you understand because you've been taught)

Accessory structure

Lens of eye, flexible part of ear, hair on skin, taste buds, nostrils

Absolute threshold

Minimum amount of stimulus energy that can be detected 50% of the time

Encoding

Translation of physical properties of a stimulus into a specific pattern of neural activity

Wavelength diagram

Baseline, wavelength, and amplitude

Color perception

Determined by wavelength

Transduction

Conversion of physical energy into neural activity by neural receptors and sensory adaptations

Sensitivity in signal detection theory

Mathematical model of how personal sensitivity and response bias combine to determine decision about near threshold stimulus

Rods vs

Photoreceptors; rods are more sensitive and provide black and white vision, cones provide color vision

Dark adaptation

Increasing ability to see in the dark as time passes

Blind spot

Point where optic nerve leaves the eyeball

Optic chaism

Feature detectors in the cerebral cortex that respond to specific features of an object

Hue, saturation, and brightness

Hue is the essential "color" determined by dominant wavelength, saturation is the purity of the color, and brightness is the overall intensity of the wavelengths

Colorblindness

Occurs when cones are missing a chemical

Loudness of sound

Related to the amplitude on the wavelength diagram

Pitch vs

Pitch is the highness or lowness of a sound in hertz, timbre is the mix of frequencies and amplitude that contribute to the sound quality

Hearing damage

Bones fusing together (conduction deafness) or damage to the acoustic nerve/hair cells (nerve deafness)

Synesthesia

Interaction of senses, such as "feeling" colors or sounds, "tasting" words or shapes, or "smelling" sounds

Olfactory vs

Olfactory is the sense of smell, gustatory is the sense of taste

Flavor

Combination of taste and smell that converge in the orbitofrontal cortex

Thalamus and smell

Smell does not process through the thalamus, it goes directly into the brain or olfactory bulb

Smell and memory

Smell is closely related to memory as it spreads through the brain, specifically the amygdala, which links odor to memory and emotion

Pheromones

Chemicals released by one creature and detected by another, used for mating or warnings

Pain

A-delta fibers produce sharp pricking sensation, C-fibers produce dull continuous aches and burning sensation

Emotional response to pain

Depends on mood.