Psychology test: Chapter 3

Sensation: the activation of the sense organs by a source of physical energy (sensing a bright light, sound, or a pinch)

Perception: the sorting out, interpretation, analysis, and integration of stimulus involving the sense organs and brain (eating a hot pepper or a sour patch kid)

Sensation and perception changes out body behavior, therefore psychologists study it

Telepathy: the term used to describe the ability to read other people’s minds

Stimulus: energy that produces a response

• light is energy and can cause you to squint

• gust of wind causes you to lose balance

Absolute threshold: minimum stimulation level an organism needs to sense a stimulus

• lowest hearing point, can range from 20-30 db

Sensory adaption: where the body adjusts to external stimuli over time

• exposed to perfume for an extended time can make u nose blind

Visual spectrum: humans can see very little

Five senses:

1. touch

2. taste

3. hear

4. smell

5. sight

ESP (Extra- Sensory Perception): belief that some people have knowledge of information that is not gained through the senses

Examples of ESP:

• Telepathy - mental transfer of information from one person to another

• Clairvoyance - medium (communicate with the dead) or finding lost people

• Pre-Cognition - predicting future events

• Intuition and Deja-vu - gut feeling/feeling that something has happened

SIGHT:
Peripheral vision: important for balance, safety (driving), sports

Tunnel vision: fear causes narrowing of the blind spot

Rods and Cones

• Rods: microscopic structures in the eye that help you see in the dark

• Cones: microscopic structures that help you see color

Light and Dark adaption

• Light adaption: eyes adapting to bright light

• Dark adaption: eyes adapting to a dark environment

• our eyes can adapt quicker to a bright light then a dark environment

What happens when you have fewer or no cones?

• Protanopia: blindness to the color red

• Deuteranopia: blindness to the color green

• Tritanopia: blindness to blue and yellow

• Acromatopsia: color blind
  Memorize cornea, lens, blind spot, and optic nerve

The Gender Gap

• average person can see 7 million colors

• 1/50 men are colorblind

• 1/5000 women are colorblind

Afterimage: an image that you seem to see when you are no longer looking at it or when it is no longer there

HEARING:

• women are more attractive to deeper voices in men

• men are more attractive to high voices

• women can match faces with voices better than men

• women cannot determine the height, weight, age, and social class by listening to someone’s voice

SMELL:

• pheromone: natural occurring chemicals in the body released into the environment

• flashbulb memory: a memory is triggered when one of the senses. this memory is so memorable because it was surprising, unexpected, and/or unusual

• how smell impacts behavior:

  • it chooses where u want to go to eat

  • it chooses whether or not u want to stay in the room

• women have a better sense of smell

  • mothers can identify their babies by a scent

  • woman who live together get synced menstrual cycles

• it impacts attraction

  • women prefer the smell of men with different immune system

  • children would receive genetic coding of both parents and would therefore have a stronger immune system

PAIN:

• Gate control theory: the theory that we can “open” and “close” the gate to pain using either artificial methods, learned methods, or natural methods

• Artificial: pain medicines, magnets, surgery

  • these methods only mask the pain

• Learned: lamaze, yoga, hypnosis, martial arts, acupuncture, suction cups, barney bandaid

• Natural: release of endorphin adrenaline during stressful moments

  • fight or flight response