MEGA Unit 3 Correction

  • Wavelength: Distance from one wave peak to the next

  • Hue: Dimension of color determined by the wavelength of light EX: color 

  • Intensity: Amount of energy the wave contains

  • Cornea: The eye’s clear, protective outer layer, covering the pupil and iris

  • Pupil: The adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters

  • Iris: Ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening

  • Lens: The transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina

  • Retina: The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information

  • Rods: Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray, and are sensitive to movement; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don’t respond

  • Cones: Retinal receptors that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. Cones detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations. 

  • Bipolar cells: cells in the visual system that connect the photoreceptors (rods and cones) to the ganglion cells

  • Ganglion cells: cells in the retina that receive visual information from the photoreceptors via the bipolar cells, and pass the information on to the brain

  • Optic nerve: Nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain

  • Blindspot: Part of the eye that has no receptor cells, because it is where the optic nerve leaves the eye, the brain fills in this hole, creating a blind spot

  • Fovea: Central focus point in the retina, around which the eye’s cones cluster

  • Accommodation: 

  • Feature detectors: Nerve cells in the brain’s visual cortex that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle or movment

  • Parallel processing: Processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain’s natural mode of information processing for many functions 

  • Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory: The theory that the retina contains three different types of color--one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue--which, when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color

  • Opponent-Process Theory: Theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, blue-yellow, white-black) enable color vision EX: Some cells are inhibited by red, others are stimulated by red and inhibited by green

  • After images: 

  • Color deficient vision (color blindness): 

  • Gestalt: An organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes

  • Figure-ground: The organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings 

  • Grouping (proximity, closure, continuity): The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups

  • Depth perception: Ability to see three dimensional objects even though the images that strike our retinas are two dimensional

  • Visual cliff: A laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals

  • Binocular cues: A depth cue, such as retinal disparity, that depends on the use of two eyes

  • Monocular cues: A depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone

  • Retinal disparity: A binocular cue for perceiving depth. By comparing retinal images from the two eyes, the brain computes distance-- the greater the disparity (difference) between the two imges, the closer the object

  • Linear perspective: visual cue in which two parallel lines appear to meet together in the distance

  • Interposition:  If one object partially blocks our view of another, we perceive it as closer

  • Stroboscopic movement: Brain perceives continuous motion in rapid series of slightly varying images EX: stop-motion video

  • Phi phenomenon: Movement illusion created when two or more adjacent objects lights blink on or off in quick succession

  • Perceptual constancy: Perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change

  • Color constancy: 

  • Other constancies - (shape, brightness, and size) 

  • Perceptual adaptation: In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or inverted visual field

  • Audition: Hearing

  • Amplitude: Height of the wave

  • Frequency: The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time

  • Pitch: A tone’s experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency

  • Decibels: Unit of relative loudness

  • Outer ear: 

  • Eardrum: 

  • Middle ear (hammer, anvil, stirrup): The chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three small bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup), that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea’s oval window

  • Cochlea: A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear; sound waves traveling through the cochlear fluid trigger neural impulses

  • Oval window: 

  • Basilar membrane: 

  • Hair cells (cilia): 

  • Auditory nerve: The auditory nerve carries neural messages to your thalamus and then on to the auditory cortex in your brain’s temporal lobe

  • Inner ear: The innermost part of the ear, containing cochlea, semicircular canals, and the vestibular sacs

  • Sensorineural hearing loss: Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea’s receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; the most common form of hearing loss, also called nerve deafness

  • Conduction hearing loss: A less common form of hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea

  • Cochlear implant: A device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea

  • Place theory: Presumes that we hear different pitches because different sound waves trigger activity at different places along the cochlea’s basilar membrane

  • Frequency theory: Suggests that the brain reads pitch by monitoring the frequency of neural impulses traveling up the auditory nerve. The whole basilar membrane vibrates with the incoming sound wave, triggering neural impulses to the brain at the same rate as the sound waves

  • Gate-control theory: Spinal cord has small nerve fibers to conduct pain signals to conduct other signals

  • Phantom limb sensations: Brain interprets CNS activity as normal sensory input, so 7/10 amputees feel movement/pain in limbs that aren’t present

  • Olfaction/olfactory bulb: Results when molecules of a substance in the air reach a tiny cluster of many receptor cells at the top of each nostril

  • Kinesthesia: System for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts - sometimes considered a sixth sense

  • Vestibular sense: Sense of body movement and position including balance that works with the cerebellum

  • Semicircular canals: 

  • Vestibular sacs

  • Sensory interaction: One sense may influence the other EX: smell impacts how something tastes

  • McGurk Effect: Effect of lip reading on hearing

  • Synesthesia: The phenomenon where senses become joined through brain circuits EX: Hearing a sound reminds someone of a specific taste

  • Embodied cognition: Influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences & judgment EX: Carrying a heavier clipboard would make a job candidate feel more important