| A | B |
|---|
| Sensation | arousal of a sense organ |
| perception | how you interpret information |
| Sensory transduction | process by which stimuli is turned into an impulse the brain understands |
| absolute threshold | minimum stimulus you can detect 50% of the time |
| difference threshold | amount of change necessary for you to detect a change in the stimulus 50% of the time |
| Weber's law | the greater the original stimulus, the greater the change needed to detect a difference |
| Signal detection theory | no abolute threshold because thresholds change with a variety of factors like fatigue, attention, etc |
| Subliminal perception | controversial idea that messages below absolute threshold can influence behavior |
| sclera | white part of the eye, provides protection and structure |
| cornea | clear, outer covering, protects the interior |
| lens | beneath cornea, clear tissue, bends light rays so the retina can focus |
| pupil | opening in the iris, changes due to light and emotional state |
| iris | colored part of the eye, muscle that contracts the pupil |
| retina | contains receptor cells, image forms here and attaches to the optic nerve |
| rods | receptor cells detect brightness, located in the outer edge of the retina |
| cones | receptor cells, detect color, located in the center of the retina |
| fovea | center of the retina, all cones are located here |
| optic nerve | nerve fiber that takes information to the occipital lobe |
| blind spot | area in each eye where you cannot see because this is where the optic nerve connects to the retina |
| optic chasm | junction where the two optic nerves cross |
| Hubel-Weisel theory | Theory that says you need to practice seeing things during a critical period of development (before 2 years of age) |
| Visible spectrum | wavelengths of light which can be seen by the human eye |
| White light | Comes directly from the source, it has not been broken down into frequencies |
| Sensory adaptation | change in receptor activity due to prolonged exposure to unchanging stimuli |
| Binocular/Stereoscopic Vision | eyes combine to create one visual image |
| Hue | difference in wavelengths;"color" |
| Negative After-Image | The firing of the cones not used after viewing something steadily in order to bring the visual system back into balance |
| Young-Hemholtz theory/trichromatic theory | malfunction of cones which causes colorblindness |
| Opponent Process Theory | Something is wrong with the retina and the thalamus, colors don't block |
| Visual Cliff | Walk and Gibson's apparatus used to show depth perception in children |
| Convergence | Binocular cues,retina bulges when things get closer |
| Accomodation | change in curvature of lens to focus eye sight |
| Interposition | Knowing what is close to you and what is farther away based on one object blocking the other |
| Motion Parallax | Near objects seem to move more rapidly than far away objects |
| Texture Gradient | the closer something is, the more detail one can perceive |
| Linear Perspective | parallel lines appear to converge at a distance |
| Shape Constancy | perception of the shape of object remains constant despite changes in the visual field |
| Size Constancy | perception of the size of object remains the same regardless of changes in visual field |
| Color and Brightness Constancy | perception of color or brightness of object stays constant despite a change in visual field |
| Bottom-Up Processing | sensory information is sent to the brain via sensory neurons to analyze |
| Top-Down Processing | templates in the brain give meaning to what one is seeing, then the information is sent |
| Gestalt | organized whole, shape, or form |
| Figure Ground Perception | minds have tendencies to organize pictures as separate enitities from the background |
| Law of Pragnanz | tendency to see things in their simplest form |
| Closure | brain fills in missing pieces of a visual image |
| Similarity | a perceptual cue in which we group like things together |
| Proximity | a perceptual cue in which we group together things that are near one another |
| Pinna | outer, fleshy ear, gathers sound and directs it into the ear |
| Tympanic Membrane | Piece of skin streched over the entrance of the ear; vibrates to sound; separates the middle from the outer ear, eardrum |
| Cochlea | snail shaped part of the ear filled with fluid and small hairs that vibrate to incoming sound |
| Basilar Membrane | part of the cochlea which connects to the auditory nerves and takes information to the temporal lobe |
| Decibels | A measure of how loud a sound is |
| Pitch | Frequency or rate of sound waves |
| Volume | height and amplitude of sound waves |
| conduction deafness | deafness due to damage to the bones of the middle ear ; is correctable |
| nerve deafness | not treatable; damage to auditory nerve system; problems with high pitch |
| smell | olfaction; receptors located in mucous membrane |
| cilia | tiny hairs that receive odor molecules; act as receptors in nose and as filters |
| olfactory bulbs | units that receive odor molecules and communicates their nature to the brain |
| olfactory nerve | smells transfer to this then sent to temporal lobe |
| taste (gustation) | salt, sweet, sour, bitter; must be in liquid form to be tasted |
| taste buds | located on tongue and roof of mouth; decode molecules of food or drink to identify them |
| cutaneous skin sensation | warmth, coldness, pain, pressure |
| kinesthetic sense | joints, ligaments, muscles; allows bodies to move in space |
| vestibular sense | sense of equilibrium; located in inner ear; deals with motion sickness |
| phantom limb pain | can occur to amputees, experience pain and pressure in an area that is no longer there |
| synesthesia | miswired senses; ex. see tastes, etc |
| touch | somesthesis |
| monocular cues | cues for depth perception seen by one eye |
| color blindness | inability to distinguish between colors due to deficiencies in the cones |
| retinal disparity | different image each eye receives |
| dark adaptation | a shift from predominantly cone vision to predominantly rod vision; adjusting to low level of light when something suddenly goes dark |
| phi phenomenon | illusion of mvmt created by rapidly appearing stimuli (Christmas lights) |
| Fechner | absolute threshold |
| gate control theory | belief that a neural mechanism resides in brain to allow some pain through and not other |
| hits/misses | accuracy or inaccuracy on sensation and perception testing mechanisms |
| sensory habituation | perception influenced by how focused we are on sensations |
| inattentional blindness | failure to see visible objects when attention is directed elsewhere |
| psychophysics | study of sensation and perception |
| visual capture | tendency for vision to dominate other senses |
| bipolar cells | cells in retina that connect rods and cones to ganglion cells |
| ganglion cells | in retina, connects bipolar cells to optic nerve |
| papillae | located on the sprouts/bumbs on the tongue; taste buds sit on top of |
| feature detectors | neurons that respond to specific features |
| parallel processing | doing many things at once to create one perception |
| intensity | amount of amplitude of light wave |
| sensorineural hearling loss | nerve deafness |
