Psychology - Chapters 4

PSY2012 Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding (5th edition)

The binding problem

The challenge of preventing the properties of one object representation from being mistakenly assigned to another (there is no completely model that explains how the brain solves it).

Binders

Transduce external stimuli into neural activity.

Ossicles

The smallest bones in the body located in the middle ear.

Subliminal perception

The unconscious processing of sensory information below the threshold of conscious awareness.

Subliminal persuasion

The act of intentionally influencing someone’s thoughts, feelings, or actions through conscious communication and appeals.

Papillae

Small structures on the tongue that contain taste buds.

Perceptual set

When expectations influence perception.

Somatosensory

The perception of touch, temperature, and pain.

Gustation

The sense of taste.

Vestibular

The sense of balance, spatial orientation, and coordination.

Proprioception

The sense of body position and movement.

Parallel processing

The ability of the brain to simultaneously process multiple aspects of sensory information.

Top-down processing

Uses pre-existing knowledge and expectations to interpret sensory information.

Bottom-up processing

Uses sensory information to build up a final interpretation.

Multilevel processing

Analyzing information at multiple levels, from basic sensory to cognitive thinking.

The visual cliff

Infants can perceive depth (Eleanor Gibson).

Haufe’s principle

The brain processes multiple layers of information to make sense of complex stimuli.

Weber’s law

The stronger the stimulus, the bigger the change needed for a change in stimulus intensity to be noticeable.

Binocular cues

Differences in images that each eye sees to perceive depth and distance.

• Convergence (distance)

• Stereopsis (depth)

Monocular cues

Visual information that an eye sees to perceive depth and distance.

• Occlusion

• Relative size

• Shadows

• Shading

• Texture gradient

• Linear perspective

• Distance to horizon

Sclera

White part of the eye.

Psychic phenomena (ESP)

• Precognition - seeing the future.

• Clairevoyance - see things beyond the normal range of senses.

• Telepathy - communicate thoughts from one mind to another.

Trichromatic theory

Humans see color by combining the wavelengths of red, green, and blue.

Opponent process theory

Humans perceive colors by opposing colors, red and green, blue and yellow, black and white. Explains why we see afterimages.

Gate control model

Distraction is an effective way of short-circuiting painful sensations.

Cochlea

Spiral shaped part of the ear with bony outer portion and a inner fluid cavity.

Human factors

A type of psychology that specializes in designing workplace environments to improve efficiency, reduce fatigue, and decrease stress.