Sensation and Perception : Vocab

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47 Terms

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Sensation
our sensory receptors receiving info from stimuli in the environment
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Perception
our brain organizing and interpreting sensory info, gives us our ability to recognize/categorize/understand
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Bottom-Up processing
makes sense of the information (new experiences); younger in life
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Top-down processing
our brains construct perceptions based on our experiences and expectations (known experiences); older in life
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Selective attention
the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.
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Selective inattention
failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere????
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Change blindness
failure to notice changes in the environment
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Transduction
the process of converting sensory inputs into neural impulses
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Psychophysics
branch of psych that studies relationship between stimuli physical characteristics and its perception (ex. a lights intensity and apparent brightness)
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Absolute threshold
how much of a stimulus do we need to detect 50% of the time
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Signal detection theory
a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person’s experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness.
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Difference threshold
minimum difference between 2 stimuli in order to be detected 50% of the time
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Weber's Law
to perceive a difference between 2 stimuli they must differ by a minimum percentage (light intensity 8%, wight 2%, sound pitch 0.3%)
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Sensory adaptation
when we are repeatedly exposed to a stimulus and thus respond less strongly to it
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Perceptual set
pre-conceived way of interpreting a stimulus that is usually culturally or socially reinforced (ex. sensor bleep)
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Pupil
center of the eye opening, it expands and contracts due to the action of the iris
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Iris
colored muscle around the pupil
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Lens
lies behind the pupil, focuses the incoming light rays onto the retina through accommodation
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Retina
inner surface of the eye, highly sensitive to light; contains rods, cones, and neurons; the image focused on to it is upside down
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Accommodation
changing shape in order to focus the object clearly
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Rods
receptor cells that detect white, blacks, and greys; ~120million
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Cones
receptor cells that detect colors; ~6million
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Optic nerve
the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain
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Blind spot
no rods or cones where optic nerve leaves the eye causing a blind spot in our vision
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Fovea
the point on the retina where images are focused, the cones cluster around it; the most sensitive area
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Feature detectors
nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement
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Parallel processing
the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain’s natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision. Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving
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Young-Helmholtz theory
the cones are sensitive to either red, green, or blue and that combinations of these allow us to see color
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Opponent-process theory
says we have three opponent color pairs (red/green, yellow/blue, black/white); color vision comes from neurons being turned on or off by these colors
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Gestalt principles
an organized whole; emphasizes our tendency to integrate pieces of info into meaningful wholes
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Binocular cues
depth cues that depend on use of both eyes (ex. Retinal Disparity)
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Monocular cues
depth cues, available to either eye alone (ex. interposition and linear position)
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Phi phenomenon
an illusion of movement created when 2 or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession
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Perceptual constancy
perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change
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Perceptual adaptation
in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field
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Eardrum
the membrane of the middle ear, which vibrates in response to sound waves
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Middle ear
the chamber between the eardrum and cochlea; stirrup, hammer, and anvil; concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window
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Cochlea
a coiled, bony, fluid filled tube in the inner ear; sound waves traveling through the cochlear fluid trigger nerve impulses
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Sensorineural hearing loss
caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or auditory nerves (ex overexposed to loud sounds)
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Conduction hearing loss
caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea
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Place theory
the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated
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Frequency theory
the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of tone
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Gate-control theory
the spinal cord contains a neurological gate that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain
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Kinesthesia
your sense of the position and movement of your body parts
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Vestibular sense
the sense of body movement and position including the sense of balance
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Sensory interaction
the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste
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Visual processing pathway
lens -> fovea -> bipolar cells -> optic nerve