Spatial Navigation, Attention, Motion Perception, Color Vision, Depth & Size Perception, Hearing & Ear Anatomy

A comprehensive set of flashcards covering key terms and concepts related to spatial navigation, visual attention, motion perception, color vision, depth perception, and hearing anatomy.

Hippocampus

Creates and stores cognitive maps of spatial environments; critical for memory of locations and navigation.

Parietal Lobes

Integrate sensory input and spatial awareness; translate spatial information into movement or attention shifts.

Top-Down Influence

Prior knowledge, expectations, and goals guide what we focus on and how we interpret a scene.

Stimulus Salience

Brightness, color, or contrast that automatically draw attention.

Attentional Capture

When a salient stimulus unexpectedly grabs attention (e.g., flashing light).

Change Blindness

Failure to notice changes in a visual scene.

Inattentional Blindness

Missing an unexpected stimulus when attention is elsewhere (e.g., Gorilla experiment).

Feature Search

An easy, “pop-out” search for one distinct feature (e.g., color, shape).

Conjunctive Search

A harder search that requires combining multiple features (e.g., color + shape).

Feature Integration Theory

Theory stating that visual system processes features separately first, then combines them.

Overt Attention

Shifting gaze directly to focus on something.

Covert Attention

Attending to something without moving the eyes.

Selective Attention

Determines which stimuli get processed, modeled by spotlight and bottleneck models.

Divided Attention

Multitasking that reduces performance; attention is a limited resource.

Hemispatial Neglect

Ignoring one side of the visual field, commonly due to right parietal damage.

Balint’s Syndrome

Inability to focus on individual objects.

Blindsight

Ability to respond to visual stimuli without conscious awareness.

ADHD

Difficulty in sustaining and shifting attention.

Real Motion

Actual movement of objects.

Apparent Motion

Illusion of motion between static images.

Phi Phenomenon

Perceiving continuous motion from flashing lights.

Saccades

Quick, jerky eye movements between fixation points.

Smooth Pursuit

Continuous tracking of moving objects.

Motion Detection in Retina

Motion-sensitive neurons respond to direction and speed of movement.

Akinetopsia

Motion blindness caused by damage to the MT area, resulting in seeing the world as frozen frames.

Visible Spectrum

The range of wavelengths from approximately 400 to 700 nm that humans can see.

Spectral Reflectance

An object's tendency to reflect certain wavelengths of light.

Trichromatic Theory

Theory stating color is perceived through a combination of responses from three cone types.

Opponent Process Theory

Theory explaining color afterimages and color contrast through opposing pairs.

Monochromacy

Condition where an individual has one or no cone types for color vision.

Dichromacy

Condition where an individual has two cone types.

Cortical Achromatopsia

Condition resulting from brain damage causing loss of color perception.

Oculomotor Cues

Depth cues based on eye muscle feedback (e.g., accommodation, convergence).

Monocular Cues

One-eye cues that provide depth information (e.g., occlusion, perspective).

Binocular Cues

Cues for depth based on retinal disparity from both eyes.

Ponzo Illusion

A visual illusion where converging lines create a depth cue leading to size misperception.

Sound

Pressure changes in air characterized by compression and rarefaction.

Frequency

Physical property of sound related to pitch.

Amplitude

Physical property of sound related to loudness.

Timbre

Physical property of sound related to sound quality.

Auditory Pathway

The route sound signals travel from the auditory nerve through the brainstem to the primary auditory cortex.