Study Guide: Sensation, Attention, and Perception

Flashcards created from lecture notes on the topics of sensation, attention, and perception, covering key concepts, sensory organs, and processes.

What is transduction?

The process by which sensory organs convert external stimuli into electrical signals that the brain can understand.

What is sensation?

Sensation is the way our brain turns energy from the outside world into the sensations we perceive.

What is perception?

When the brain organizes and interprets sensory impressions into meaningful patterns.

What is the difference between sensation and perception?

Sensation converts energy to sensory impressions; perception organizes and interprets those impressions into meaningful patterns.

What do sensory receptors do?

Specialized cells within our sense organs detect specific stimuli and create electrical signals (action potentials).

What are the five main sensory organs?

Eyes, ears, skin, tongue, and nose.

What are the two types of photoreceptors in the retina?

Cones and rods.

What do cones do?

Produce color sensations and fine details.

What do rods do?

Detect light, allow vision in dim conditions, and are more sensitive than cones.

What is accommodation in the eye?

Allows focus on objects regardless of distance by adjusting the curvature of the lens.

What does the cornea do?

The clear front window of the eye that bends light inward to help focus.

What does the lens do?

Changes shape to focus light on the retina.

What is hyperopia (farsightedness)?

The eye is too short; nearby objects are blurred, but distant objects are sharp.

What is myopia (nearsightedness)?

The eyeball is too long, causing difficulty focusing on distant objects.

What is astigmatism?

An imperfect curvature of the cornea resulting in multiple focal points.

What is presbyopia?

The lens becomes less flexible with age, making accommodation more difficult.

What are the five touch sensations?

Light touch, pressure, pain, cold, and warm.

Which body areas have the highest receptor density?

Lips, tongue, face, hands, and genitals.

How is fast pain described?

Pain carried by large nerve fibers that is sharp, bright, and fast, serving as the body's warning system.

How is slow pain described?

Pain carried by small nerve fibers that is slower and aching, serving as a reminding system.

What is the Gate Control Theory of pain?

Pain messages from two different types of nerve fibers pass through the same neural gate in the spinal cord; one message can block another.

What is sensory adaptation?

Sensory receptors respond less over time to unchanging stimuli and respond best to changes in stimulation.

What is sensory overload?

When the brain receives more sensory input than it can process, the senses reduce the amount of information sent to the brain.

What four ways help the senses reduce sensory overload?

Lack of specific transducers, restricted range of transducers, sensory adaptation, and feature detection.

What is selective attention?

The ability to focus on specific sensory input.

What happens when we try to divide attention between tasks?

Attentional resources are limited; attempts to divide them can result in poor consequences.

What is task-switching?

Moving attention rapidly between each thing when doing multiple tasks.

What are the four factors that influence attention?

Intensity, contrast, personal importance, and goals.

What is inattentional blindness?

Failure to notice a stimulus because attention is focused elsewhere.

What is change blindness?

Failure to notice the background changing because attention is focused on one specific element of the scene.

What is mind-wandering?

The tendency for attention to stray to things that are internal and unrelated to stimuli.

What are negative effects of mind-wandering?

Increased likelihood of accidents, impaired memory, and difficulties in the workplace.

What are positive effects of mind-wandering?

Increased creativity and relief from boredom.

What is the process of perception?

When the brain organizes and interprets sensory impressions into meaningful patterns.

What are illusions?

Occur because of perceptual misconstruction in the way information is sent to the brain.

What are hallucinations?

People perceive objects or events with no external reality.

What is synesthesia?

A condition in which sensory impressions cross normal sensory barriers.

What is bottom-up processing?

Organizing perceptions by starting with sensory impressions and low-level features to build a complete perception.

What is top-down processing?

Prior knowledge and experience provide a guide to perception of meaningful wholes.

What are perceptual constancies?

The brain learns that shape, size, and brightness of objects remain stable even when the image on the retina changes.