Ap Psych Chrestman Sensation

Sensation & Perception Vocab Part 1 

1. Sensation - the process by which our sensory receptors are nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment 

2. Bottom-Up Processing - information processing that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information 

3. Top-Down Processing - information processing guided by high-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations 

4. Prosopagnosia - “facial blindness”; a cognitive disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize faces is impaired 5. Blindsight - a neurological condition where someone can perceive the location of an object, despite having damage to the visual cortex 

6. Transduction - conversion of one form of energy into another 7. Absolute Threshold - the minimum stimulation necessary to detect a particular light, sound, pressure, taste, or odor 50% of the time 

8. Just Noticeable Difference - the smallest amount by which two sensory stimuli can differ in order for an individual to perceive them as different 

9. Weber’s Law - the degree to which stimuli need to be different for the difference to be detected 

10. Sensory Adaptation - diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation 

11. Light’s wavelength - the distance from one wave peak to the next, determines the hue (color) we experience 

12. Light’s wavelength amplitude - (height) determines its intensity, the amount of energy the wave contains 

13. Lens - changes shape to help focus images on the retina 14. Accommodation - to focus the rays, the lens changes it curvature and thickness 

15. Retina - a layer of tissue at the back of the eye

16. Fovea - the central point in the retina 

17. Nearsightedness - if the lens focuses the image on a point in front of the retina, you can see near object clearly but not distant objects 

18. Farsightedness - if the lens focuses the image on a point behind the retina, you see distant objects better than near objects 

19. Photoreceptors - convert light into electrical signals that are sent to the visual nerve for brain processing 

20. Rods - retinal photoreceptors that detect black, white, and gray and are sensitive to movement 

21. Cones - retinal photoreceptors that detect color and are located in the fovea 

22. Ganglion cells - recieves information from bipolar cells ganglion axons twine together like the strands of a rope to form the optic nerve 

23. Visual Nerve - (optic nerve)carries neural impulse from the eye to the brain 

24. Blind spot - where the optic nerve leaves the eye there are no receptor cells 

25. Trichromatic Theory - the types of cones can make millions of combinations of colors 

26. Opponent-Process Theory - the sensory receptors come in pairs; if one color is stimulated, the other is inhibited 27. Afterimages - when certain ganglion cells in the retina are activated, while others are not 

28. Monochromats - have total color blindness, their worlds look like black and white movies 

29. Dichromats - have trouble distinguishing red from green because they have just two kinds of cones 

30. Amplitude - the perceived loudness of the waves (height) 31. Pitch - a tone’s experienced highness or lowness (length) 32. Cochlea - a snail-shaped tube in the inner ear

33. Vestibular Sense - located above the cochlea in the inner ear and is our sense of body and position that enables our sense of balance 

34. Semicircular Canals - contains fluid and moves in response to the movements of your head (controls vestibular sense) 35. Conduction Deafness - can be caused by damage to the eardrum or middle ear bones that conducts sound waves to the cochlea 

36. Sensorineural Deafness - damage to the cochlea’s cells or the auditory nerve 

37. Place Theory - presumes that we hear different pitches because different sound waves trigger activity at different places along the cochlea’s membrane 

38. Frequency Theory - suggest the brain reads pitch by monitoring the frequency of neural impulses traveling up the auditory nerve 

39. Volley Theory - neural cells can alternate firing; by firing in rapid succession, they can achieve a combined frequency above 1000 waves per second 

40. Localizing Sound - you can easily point to the sound when it comes from either side because the sound is more intense, but struggle when it comes directly ahead, behind, above, or

below due to the way our ears perceive sound intensity and timing differences, which help our brain determine the d

irection of the source.