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Untitled Flashcards Set
Basic Concepts
Sensation – The process by which sensory receptors create neural messages that represent stimuli in the brain.
Example: Feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin.
Perception – The process of making sensory patterns meaningful.
Example: Recognizing that the scent of cookies means someone is baking.
Transduction – The conversion of physical energy (light waves, sound waves, etc.) into neural messages.
Example: The retina in the eye converts light into electrical signals for the brain.
Sensory Pathways & Thresholds
Sensory Adaptation – Reduced sensitivity to a stimulus after prolonged exposure.
Example: No longer noticing the smell of your perfume after wearing it for a while.
Absolute Threshold – The minimum amount of stimulation needed for a stimulus to be detected.
Example: A person can see a candle flame from 30 miles away in total darkness.
Difference Threshold (Just Noticeable Difference - JND) – The smallest detectable change in a stimulus.
Example: Slightly increasing the volume on your phone and noticing the difference.
Weber’s Law – The JND is proportional to the intensity of the stimulus.
Example: If the room is bright, you need to increase the light significantly to notice a change.
Vision
Blind Spot – The point where the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating an area with no photoreceptors.
Example: Closing one eye and slowly moving a small object until it disappears.
Fovea – The central part of the retina responsible for sharp vision.
Example: When reading, the words you focus on are seen sharply due to the fovea.
Photoreceptors – Light-sensitive cells in the retina that detect light.
Example: Rods help you see in dim light, while cones detect color.
Color Blindness – A vision disorder that prevents distinguishing certain colors.
Example: A person with red-green color blindness may confuse red and green traffic lights.
Trichromatic Theory – Theory that the eye has three types of cones sensitive to red, blue, and green.
Example: Mixing different levels of these colors creates all other colors.
Opponent-Process Theory – The idea that color is processed in complementary pairs (red-green, blue-yellow).
Example: Staring at a green image for a while, then seeing a red afterimage when looking away.
Hearing
Cochlea – A spiral-shaped structure in the inner ear where sound waves are transduced into neural signals.
Example: The cochlea helps convert sound vibrations into signals your brain understands.
Auditory Cortex – The part of the temporal lobe that processes sound.
Example: This is where speech and music are recognized.
Tinnitus – The perception of ringing in the ears without an external sound source.
Example: Hearing a ringing sound after attending a loud concert.
Conduction Deafness – Hearing loss due to damage to structures in the middle ear.
Example: A person with damaged eardrums may need hearing aids.
Nerve Deafness – Hearing loss due to damage to hair cells in the cochlea or auditory nerve.
Example: Loud noises over time can damage these hair cells, leading to permanent hearing loss.
Touch, Taste, & Smell
Olfaction (Smell) – The sense of smell, processed by the olfactory bulbs.
Example: Smelling fresh coffee when you wake up.
Pheromones – Chemical signals that influence behavior in other members of the species.
Example: Ants release pheromones to communicate a trail to food.
Gustation (Taste) – The sense of taste, detected by taste buds.
Example: Distinguishing sweet from sour foods.
Vestibular Sense – The sense of body orientation relative to gravity.
Example: The vestibular system helps you balance when standing on one foot.
Kinesthetic Sense – The sense of body movement and position.
Example: Knowing where your hand is without looking at it.
Perception & Illusions
Perceptual Set – A mental predisposition to perceive something based on expectations.
Example: Expecting to see a face in random cloud shapes.
Illusions – Incorrect interpretations of sensory information.
Example: The Müller-Lyer illusion makes two identical lines appear different in length.
Ambiguous Figures – Images that can be perceived in more than one way.
Example: The "duck-rabbit" image that can be seen as either animal.
Learning-Based Inference – Perception is influenced by prior knowledge and experience.
Example: Recognizing a blurry picture of an object because you’ve seen it before.
Gestalt Principles – The brain’s tendency to organize information into meaningful patterns.
Example: Seeing a triangle in the gaps of three circles.
Depth Perception & Motion
Depth Perception – The ability to judge distance and three-dimensional space.
Example: Catching a ball by estimating its distance.
Visual Cliff Experiment – A study that shows depth perception is present in infants.
Example: Babies hesitate to crawl over a glass-covered drop.
Retinal Disparity – A binocular cue where each eye sees a slightly different image.
Example: Closing one eye and switching to the other makes objects appear to shift.
Motion Sickness – A disturbance in the vestibular system due to conflicting sensory information.
Example: Feeling nauseous in a car while reading.
NoteStudied by 7 peopleNoteStudied by 31 peopleNoteStudied by 22 peopleNoteStudied by 6 peopleNoteStudied by 142 peopleNoteStudied by 17 people