Unit 3 AP Psych Review

Sensation - Process where sensory receptors gather information from the environment using the five senses

Bottom-Up Processing - Making an analysis based on our senses

Top-Down Processing - Making an analysis based on previous experiences and memories/information

Absolute Threshold - Smallest amount of stimulus to discern something half of the time

Subliminal Threshold - Stimulus just under absolute threshold

Difference Threshold - Smallest amount of difference to discern two things half of the time

Ernst Weber - Created Weber’s Law

Weber’s law - Constant percentage change should exist to discern between two stimuli

Signal Detection Theory - Expectations determine if we find a stimulus or not

Sensory Adaptation - Getting used to a stimulus after a period of time

Selective Attention - Paying attention to a single stimulus during a period of time

Cocktail Party Effect - You can pay attention to a specific stimulus in between many of them

Inattentional Blindness - Not noticing something because of your focus on a stimulus

Change Blindness - Not noticing changes in the environment because of your focus on a stimulus

Cornea - Outer covering of the eyes

Iris - Controls how much light goes into the eye

Pupil - front of the eye that lets light go through

Lens - allows the eyes to focus an image

Retina - Controls visual sensory and holds the rods

Fovea - Field of sharpest view in the eyes, hosts the cones

Optic Nerve - Nerve that sends visual messages to the brain

Blind Spot - Area where there are no visual receptors in the eye

Cones - Lets us see in the day and lets us see colors

Rods - Lets us see in the night and lets us see black & white

Bipolar Cells - Connects to the rods and cones to the Ganglion cells

Ganglion cells - Cells that form the optic nerves

Visual Processing Cycle: rods + cones → bipolar cells → ganglion cells → optic nerve

Parallel processing: Ability to focus on multiple stimuli at once

Feature Detectors - nerve cells that specialize in noticing fine shapes such as lines 

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory - Retina specifically focuses on red, blue, and green colors as stimuli

Opponent Process Theory - processing primary colors in opposite pairs, blue and yellow, red and green, black and white

Pinna - (outer ear) Outer skin of the ear, directs sound into the ear canal

Auditory Canal - (outer ear) Tube connecting outer ear and middle ear that carries soundwaves

Eardrum - (middle ear) Tight membrane in the middle ear that vibrates because of soundwaves

Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup - (middle ear) Tiny bones in the ear that transport the vibrations of sound to the Cochlea

Semicircular Canals - (inner ear) Set of three looped channels that are important for balance

Basilar Membrane - (inner ear) Tiny hairs that line the Cochlea and allow us to hear

Cochlea - (inner ear) Snail shaped structure in the ear that contains hearing receptors

Auditory Nerve - (inner ear) Nerve that is attached to the Cochlea and provides sound info to the brain

Frequency - Determined by the wavelength of the sound

Intensity - Determined by the amount of energy in a soundwave

Frequency Theory - Basilar Membrane vibrate to match the frequency of sounds

Place Theory - A different place in the ear is activated depending on the sound heard

Noise-Induced Hearing Loss - Hearing loss due to the hair in your ear being damaged over time

Conduction Deafness - Hearing loss due to the damage of the bone in your ear

Sensorineural Deafness - Hearing loss due to damage to the Auditory nerve

Gustation - Sense known as taste

Tastes we can taste - Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami, astringent

Olfaction - Sense known as smell

Sensory Interaction - Our senses frequently work together to work well

Nociceptors - Pain Receptors

Gate Control Theory - Spinal cord contains a neurological “gate” that allows or blocks pain to be perceived by the brain

Phantom Limb Pain - Pain occurs in the place of amputation for amputees in some cases

Vestibular Sense - The brain actively knowing what position the head is in to maintain balance

Kinesthesis - Sense that tracks movement in our brain

Gestalt Principle - Seeing things as a whole rather than the parts it is made up of

Perception - Process of interpreting stimuli around us

Monocular Cues - Noticing visual stimuli with only one eye

Interposition - Objects that block other things are noticed as closer than the other

Linear Perspective - The closer the lines are to each other, the farther they are from you

Relative Size - Farther objects are perceived as smaller compared to closer objects

Texture Gradient - The farther something is, the less of a texture is seen on it

Motion Parallax - Farther objects move slower than closer objects

Binocular Cues - Eyes shift to focus in on closer or farther objects

Retinal Disparity - Depth is perceived differently based on viewing angles 

Figure-ground - In an image with “two” depictions at the same time, we can only see one at a time

Closure - Our brain mentally fills in the blank in an image

Proximity - Things seen together are discerned as a group

Similarity - We see things that are similar and create a connection between those things

Connectedness - We see things as a group when they are connected

Continuity - We see things more often than not as connected rather than broken up or split

Stroboscopic Movement - Images rapidly appearing in success is seen as motion (e.g. a flipbook)
Phi Phenomenon - Lights flashing in a pattern is seen as motion

Perceptual Set - Our previous perceptions/experiences change how we view a stimuli

Schema - A concept that helps to perceive a stimuli, this makes up our Perceptual Set