PSYC 101 - MIDTERM 2

CHAPTER 4:

Sensation:

• simple stimulation of a sense organ

  • basic registration of light, sound, pressure, odour, or taste as parts of your body interact with the physical world

Perception:

• occurs in your brain as sensation is registered there

  • the organization, identification, and interpretation of a sensation in order to form a mental representation

Transduction:

• occurs when sense receptors convert physical signals from the environment into neural signals that are sent to the central nervous system

Sensory Adaptation:

• sensitivity to prolonged stimulation tends to decline over time as an organism adapts to current (unchanging) conditions

Absolute Threshold:

• threshold → boundary

• the minimal intensity needed to just barely detect a stimulus in 50% of the trials

Sensitivity:

• how responsive we are to faint stimuli

Acuity:

• how well we can distinguish two very similar stimuli

  • ex. two tones that differ slightly in loudness or two lights that differ slightly in brightness

Just Noticeable Difference (JND):

• the minimal change in a stimulus

• (ex. loudness or brightness) that can just barely be detected

Weber’s Law:

• states that for every sense domain, the change in a stimulus that is just noticeable is a constant proportion despite variation in intensities

Signal Detection Theory:

• the response to a stimulus depends both on a person’s sensitivity to the stimulus in the presence of noise and on a person’s decision criterion

Cornea:

• bends the light wave and sends it through the pupil

Pupil:

• a hole in the coloured part of the eye

Retina:

• a layer of light-sensitive tissue lining the back of the eyeball

  • muscles change the shape of the lens to focus objects at different distances, making the lens flatter for objects that are far away or rounder for nearby objects

Accomedation:

• the process whereby the eye maintains a clear image on the retina

Myopia:

• nearsightedness

• when the eyeball is too long, images are focused in front of the retina

Hyperopia:

• farsightedness

• when the eyeball is too short, images are focused behind the retina

Cones:

• detect colour, operate under normal daylight conditions, and allow us to focus on fine detail

Rods:

• become active only under low-light conditions, for night vision

Fovea:

• an area of the retina where vision is clearest and there are no rods at all

Blind Spot:

• a location in the visual field that produces no sensation on the retina

Visual Receptive Field:

• the region of the visual field to which each neuron responds

  • also very small for neurons in V1

Ventral (lower) Stream:

• travels across the occipital lobe into the lower levels of the temporal lobes and includes brain areas that represent an object’s shape and identity

Dorsal (upper) Stream:

• travels up from the occipital lobe to the parietal lobes (including some of the middle and upper levels of the temporal lobes) and includes brain areas that identify where an object is and how it is moving

Visual Form Agnosia:

• the inability to recognize objects by sight

Binding Problem:

• how the brain links features together so that we see unified objects in our visual world rather than free-floating or miscombined features

Parallel Processing:

• the brain’s capacity to perform multiple activities at the same time

Illusory Conjunction:

• a perceptual mistake whereby the brain incorrectly combines features from multiple objects

Feature-Integration Theory:

• focused attention is not required to detect the individual features that make up a stimulus (e.g., the colour, shape, size, and location of letters)

  • but it is required to bind those individual features together

Attention:

• the active and conscious processing of particular information

  • provides the “glue” necessary to bind features together

Perceptual Constancy:

• the idea that even as aspects of sensory signals change, perception remains constant

Perceptional Organization:

• process of grouping and segregating features to create whole objects organized in meaningful ways

Monocular Depth Cues:

• aspects of a scene that yield information about depth when viewed with only one eye

Binocular Disparity:

• the difference in the retinal images of the two eyes that provides information about depth

Apparent Motion:

• perception of movement as a result of alternating signals appearing in rapid succession in different locations

Biological Motion Perception:

• our ability to perceive biological motion critical for identifying individuals and various socially relevant features

• ex. emotional state, personality characteristics, whether they are vulnerable to attack, or are engaging in deceptive actions

Spatial Acuity:

• visual

• ability to distinguish two stimuli that are very close together in space

Temporal Acuity:

• auditory

• the ability to distinguish two stimuli that are very close together in time

Multisensory:

• stimulating multiple senses at the same time

Ventriloquist Illusion:

• dependemce on visual system for reliable information about spatial location

Change Blindness:

• when people fail to detect changes to the visual details of a scene

Inattentional Blindness:

• a failure to perceive objects that are not the focus of attention

Sound Waves:

• changes in air pressure unfolding over time

Pitch:

• how high or low a sound is

Loudness:

• the perception of a sound’s intensity

Timbre:

• the quality of sound that allows you to distinguish two sources with the same pitch and loudness

Cochlea:

• Latin for ‘small’

• fluid-filled tube that contains cells that transduce sound vibrations into neural impulses

Basilar Membrane:

• a structure in the inner ear that moves up and down in time with vibrations relayed from the ossicles, transmitted through the oval window

• sound travels up in a travelling wave

Inner Hair Cells:

• specialized auditory receptor neurons embedded in the basilar membrane

Area A1:

• the primary auditory cortex in the temporal lobe

Place Code:

• the brain uses information about the relative activity of hair cells across the whole basilar membrane to help determine the pitch you hear

  • ex. which ones are more active and which are less active

Temporal Code:

• the brain uses the timing of the action potentials in the auditory nerve to help determine the pitch you hear

Haptic Perception:

• active exploration of the environment by touching and grasping objects with our hands

Tactile Receptive Field:

• small patch of skin that relates information about pain, pressure, texture, pattern, or vibration to a receptor

Referred Pain:

• when sensory information from internal and external areas converges on the same nerve cells in the spinal cord

Gate-Control Theory:

• holds that signals arriving from pain receptors in the body can be stopped, or gated, by interneurons in the spinal cord via feedback from the skin or from the brain

Proprioception:

• sense of bodily position

Vestibular System:

• the three fluid-filled semicircular canals and adjacent organs located next to the cochlea in each inner ear

Olfactory Receptor Neurons (ORNs):

• receptor cells that transduce odourant molecules into neural impulses

Olfactory Bulb:

• a brain structure located above the nasal cavity beneath the frontal lobes

Pheromones:

• biochemical odourants emitted by other members of an animal’s species that can affect its behaviour or physiology

Taste Buds:

• the organs of taste transduction

• mouth contains 5,000 to 10,000 tastebuds

CHAPTER 7:

Learning:

• the acquisition, from experience, of new knowledge, skills, or responses that results in a relatively permanent change in the state of the learner

Habituation:

• a general process in which repeated or prolonged exposure to a stimulus results in a gradual reduction in responding

Sensitization:

• when presentation of a stimulus leads to an increased response to a later stimulus

Classical Conditioning:

• a type of learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus produces a response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally produces a response

• ex. Pavlov’s experiments with dogs

Unconditioned Stimulus (US):

• something that reliably produces a naturally occurring reaction in an organism

Unconditioned Response (UR):

• a reflexive reaction that is reliably produced by an unconditioned stimulus

Acquisition:

• the phase of classical conditioning when the CS and the US are presented together

Conditioned Stimulus (CS):

• a previously neutral stimulus that produces a reliable response in an organism after being paired with a US

Conditioned Response (CR):

• a reaction that resembles an unconditioned response but is produced by a conditioned stimulus

Second-Order Conditioning:

• a type of learning in which a CS is paired with a stimulus that became associated with the US in an earlier procedure

Extinction:

• the gradual elimination of a learned response that occurs when the CS is repeatedly presented without the US

Spontaneous Recovery:

• the tendency of a learned behaviour to recover from extinction after a rest period

Generalization:

• ex. when the CR is observed even though the CS is slightly different from the CS used during acquisition

Discrimination:

• the capacity to distinguish between similar but distinct stimuli

Biological Preparedness:

• a propensity for learning particular kinds of associations over other kinds

Operant Conditioning:

• a type of learning in which the consequences of an organism’s behaviour determine whether it will repeat that behaviour in the future

Operant Behaviour:

• behaviour that an organism performs that has some impact on the environment

Reinforcer:

• any stimulus or event that increases the likelihood of the behaviour that led to it

Punisher:

• any stimulus or event that decreases the likelihood of the behaviour that led to it

Primary Reinforcers:

• ex. food, shelter, warmth, comfort

• satisfy biological needs or desires

Secondary Reinforcers:

• derive their effectiveness from their associations with primary reinforcers through classical conditioning

Fixed-Interval (FI) Schedule:

• reinforcers are presented at fixed time periods, provided that the appropriate response is made

Variable-Interval (VI) Schedule:

• a behaviour is reinforced on the basis of an average time that has expired since the last reinforcement

Fixed-Ratio (FR) Schedule:

• reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been made

Variable-Ratio Schedule:

• the delivery of reinforcement is based on a particular average number of responses, although the ratio of responses to reinforcements is variable

• ex. Casion slot machine outputs

Intermittent Reinforcement:

• when only some of the responses made are followed by reinforcement

Intermittent Reinforcement Effect:

• the fact that operant behaviours that are maintained under intermittent reinforcement schedules resist extinction better than those maintained under continuous reinforcement

Shaping:

• learning that results from the reinforcement of successive steps to a final desired behaviour

Latent Learning:

• something is learned, but it is not manifested as a behavioural change until sometime in the future

Cognitive Map:

• a mental representation of the physical features of the environment

Observational Learning:

• a process in which an organism learns by watching the actions of others

Diffusion Chain:

• a process in which individuals initially learn a behaviour by observing another individual perform that behaviour, and then become models from which other individuals learn the behaviour

Implicit Learning:

• learning that takes place largely independent of awareness of both the process and the products of information acquisition

CHAPTER 6:

Memory:

• the ability to store and retrieve information over time

Ecoding:

• the process of transforming what we perceive, think, or feel into an enduring memory

Storage:

• the process of maintaining information in memory over time

Retrieval:

• the process of bringing to mind information that has been previously encoded and stored

Semantic Encoding:

• the process of relating new information in a meaningful way to knowledge that is already stored in memory

Visual Imagery Encoding:

• the process of storing new information by converting it into mental pictures

Organizational Encoding:

• the process of categorizing information according to the relationships among a series of items

Mnemonics:

• encoding strategies that improve subsequent retrieval

Sensory Memory:

• a type of storage that holds sensory information for a few seconds or less

Iconic Memory:

• a fast-decaying store of visual information

Echoic Memory:

• a fast-decaying store of auditory information

Short-Term Memory:

• a type of storage that holds nonsensory information for more than a few seconds but less than a minute

Long-Term Memory:

• a type of storage that holds information for hours, days, weeks, or years

Rehersal:

• the process of keeping information in short-term memory by mentally repeating it

Serial Position Effect:

• the observation that the first few and last few items in a series are more likely to be recalled than the items in the middle

Chunking:

• combining small pieces of information into larger clusters or chunks that are more easily held in short-term memory

Working Memory:

• active maintenance of information in short-term storage

Anterograde Amnesia:

• the inability to transfer new information from the short-term store into the long-term store

Retrograde Amnesia:

• the inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an injury or surgery

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Consolidation:

• the process by which memories become stable in the brain

Reconsolidation:

• when memories can become vulnerable to disruption when they are recalled, thus requiring them to be consolidated again

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP):

• a process whereby repeated communication across the synapse between neurons strengthens the connection, making further communication easier

Retrieval Cue:

• external information that is associated with stored information and helps bring it to mind

Encoding Specificity Principle:

• states that a retrieval cue can serve as an effective reminder when it helps re-create the specific way in which information was initially encoded

State-Dependent Retrieval:

• the process whereby information tends to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval

Transfer-Appropriate Processing:

• the idea that memory is likely to transfer from one situation to another when the encoding and retrieval contexts of the situations match

Retrieval-Induced Forgetting:

• a process by which retrieving an item from long-term memory impairs subsequent recall of related items

Explicit Memory:

• when people consciously or intentionally retrieve past experiences

Implicit Memory:

• when past experiences influence later behaviour and performance, even without an effort to remember them or an awareness of the recollection

Procedural Memory:

• the gradual acquisition of skills as a result of practice, or “knowing how” to do things

Priming:

• an enhanced ability to think of a stimulus, such as a word or object, as a result of a recent exposure to the stimulus during an earlier study task

Semantic Memory:

• a network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world

Episodic Memory:

• the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place

Transience:

• forgetting what occurs with the passage of time

• occurs during the storage phase of memory, after an experience has been encoded and before it is retrieved

Retroactive Interference:

• situations in which later learning impairs memory for information acquired earlier

Proactive Interference:

• situations in which earlier learning impairs memory for information acquired later

Absentmindedness:

• a lapse in attention that results in memory failure

Prospective Memory:

• remembering to do things in the future

Blocking:

• a failure to retrieve information that is available in memory even though you are trying to produce it

Source Memory:

• recall of when, where, and how information was acquired

False Recognition:

• a feeling of familiarity about something that hasn’t been encountered before

Suggestability:

• the tendency to incorporate misleading information from external sources into personal recollections

Bias:

• the distorting influences of present knowledge, beliefs, and feelings on recollection of previous experiences

Persistence:

• the intrusive recollection of events that we wish we could forget

Flashbulb Memories:

• detailed recollections of when and where we heard about shocking events