Ap Psych Chapter 4

Front 1

Sensation

Back 1

Process in which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.

Front 2

Perception

Back 2

Process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.

Front 3

Bottom-Up Processing

Back 3

Starts with sensory receptors (fingers, nose, and eyes) and works up to higher levels of processing.

Front 4

Top-Down Processing

Back 4

Constructs perceptions from the sensory input by drawing on our experiences and expectations.

Front 5

Selective Attention

Back 5

Focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.

Front 6

Cocktail Party Effect

Back 6

When at a party, or loud area, you are able to just listen to one voice.

Front 7

Unattentional Blindness

Back 7

Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.

Front 8

Change Blindness

Back 8

Failing to notice changes in the environment.

Front 9

Transduction

Back 9

Transforming energies (such as sight), into neural impulses the brain can interpret.

Front 10

Psychophysics

Back 10

The study of the relationship between sensory experiences and the psychical stimuli.

Front 11

Absolute Thresholds

Back 11

Minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.

Front 12

Signal Detection Theory

Back 12

A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid background stimulation.

Front 13

Subliminal

Back 13

Below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Front 14

Priming

Back 14

The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.

Front 15

Difference Threshold

Back 15

The smallest change in a physical stimulus that can be detected between two stimuli 50% of the time.

Front 16

Weber's Law

Back 16

The principal that to be perceived as different. Two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage.

Front 17

Sensory Adaptation

Back 17

Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.

Front 18

Sensory Deprivation

Back 18

Removal or minimizing one or more senses. Usually leads to sensory compensation.

Front 19

Perceptual Set

Back 19

A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

Front 20

Context Effects

Back 20

The context or situation can affect the perceptual set.

Front 21

ESP (Extrasensory Perception)

Back 21

An ability to gain information by some means other than the ordinary senses.

Front 22

Parapsychology

Back 22

The study of paranormal phenomena including ESP and psychokinesis.

Front 23

Wavelength

Back 23

Distance from one peak to the next.

Front 24

Hue

Back 24

The color you see.

Front 25

Intensity

Back 25

The amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude.

Front 26

Pupil

Back 26

The opening in the iris that regulates the amount of light entering the eye.

Front 27

Iris

Back 27

Ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye; controls size of the pupil opening.

Front 28

Lens

Back 28

A flexible, transparent structure in the eye that changes its shape to focus lights on the retina.

Front 29

Accomodation

Back 29

Process of the lens changing shape to focus near or far objects on the retina.

Front 30

Retina

Back 30

The innermost coating of the back of the eye, containing photoreceptors.

Front 31

Blindsight

Back 31

You can physically see, but a failure in the brain processing causes it so you can't process the image and think that you can't see, when really you can.

Front 32

Photoreceptors

Back 32

Receptors for changing light energy into neural impulse.

Front 33

Rods

Back 33

Unable to detect color, works in low light; black and white. In the eye, rods are spread throughout.

Front 34

Cones

Back 34

Detect color in brighter light. In the eye, cones are concentrated in the center.

Front 35

Fovea

Back 35

The central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster.

Front 36

Optic Nerve

Back 36

Connects to the back of the eye to the brain (occipital lobe).

Front 37

Blind Spot

Back 37

The place where you have no rods or cones.

Front 38

Feature Detectors (Hubel and Wiesel)

Back 38

Nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement.

Front 39

Parallel Processing

Back 39

Brain divides color, depth, movement, and form.

Front 40

Trichromatic (Three-color) Theory

Back 40

Young-Helmhotz thought that the retina has only three types of color receptors. (Red, green, and blue.)

Front 41

Opponent-Process Theory

Back 41

Theory that visual information is analyzed in terms of the opponent colors. Red and green, blue and yellow, and black and white.

Front 42

Afterimage Effect

Back 42

When you see the opposite of certain colors.

Front 43

Gestalt

Back 43

Take information into meaningful wholes.

Front 44

Figure-Ground

Back 44

The organization of the visual field into objects(figures) that stand out from their surroundings(ground).

Front 45

Grouping

Back 45

The tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.

Front 46

Proximity

Back 46

Group nearby figures together.

Front 47

Closure

Back 47

Fill in gaps to create a complete whole object.

Front 48

Depth Perception

Back 48

The ability to see objects in 3D although the images that strike the retina are 2D; allows us to judge distance.

Front 49

Visual Cliff

Back 49

Experiment designed to test babies depth perception.

Front 50

Binocular Cues

Back 50

Depth cues that use both eyes.

Front 51

Retinal Disparity

Back 51

By comparing images from retinas in the two eyes, the brain computes distance.

Front 52

Relative Height

Back 52

Objects that are further from the viewer appear higher, thus making it further away.

Front 53

Relative Size

Back 53

Closer objects appear larger, smaller objects appear further away.

Front 54

Interposition

Back 54

If an object appears to overlap another, the one overlapping is closer.

Front 55

Relative Motion

Back 55

As we move, objects that are actually stable may appear to move.

Front 56

Linear Perspective

Back 56

Parallel lines appear to meet in the distance.

Front 57

Light and Shadow/Shadowing

Back 57

Using light and shadow can create the illusion of 3D.

Front 58

Texture Gradients

Back 58

Details are too small to see when they are far away.

Front 59

Perceptual Adaptation

Back 59

In vision the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Front 60

Amplitude

Back 60

Of sound waves determines their loudness.

Front 61

Frequency

Back 61

The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (determines the pitch).

Front 62

Pitch

Back 62

A tone's experienced highness or lowness, depends on the frequency.

Front 63

Outer Ear

Back 63

Receives sound waves and directs down the Auditory Canal this causes vibration of air which in turn causes the eardrum to vibrate.

Front 64

Middle Ear

Back 64

Air-filled cavity, its main structure are three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) are linked to the eardrum at one end and to cochlea at the other end.

Front 65

Inner Ear

Back 65

Cochlea is a bony tube that contains fluids and neurons. Tiny hairs inside pick up the motion, these hairs are attached to sensory cells which turn vibrations into neural input.

Front 66

Basilar Membrane

Back 66

A stiff structural element that separates two liquid-filled tubes that run along the coil of the cochlea.

Front 67

Conduction Deafness

Back 67

Physical movement hindered, usually cured through hearing aid.

Front 68

Sensorineural Deafness

Back 68

Damage to the cochlea, the hair cells, or auditory neurons.

Front 69

Place Theory

Back 69

We hear different pitches because different waves activate different parts of cochlea membrane.

Front 70

Frequency Theory

Back 70

The rate that the nerve impulses travel up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone.

Front 71

Touch

Back 71

Responsible for providing the brain with least 4 kinds of information (pressure, warmth, cold, and pain).

Front 72

Pain

Back 72

Results from many different stimuli can be localized or generalized pain.

Front 73

Gate-Control Theory of Pain

Back 73

Lessens pain by taking attention off of the spot getting hurt.

Front 74

Taste

Back 74

Sour, salty, bitter, umami, and sweet that combine together to be known as a flavor.

Front 75

Olfactory Nerve

Back 75

Nerve that carries smell impulses from the nose to the brain.

Front 76

Pheromone

Back 76

Chemical substance that when released by an organism it influences other behaviors. (Behavior preferences are determined by individual).

Front 77

Sensory Interaction

Back 77

When two or more senses interact with each other to cause a reaction.

Front 78

Embodied Cognition

Back 78

Remembering something though a smell with the situation.

Front 79

Kinesthesis

Back 79

Movement of the body performed that establishes new knowledge to our brain.

Front 80

Vestibular Sense

Back 80

The sensory system that contributes to movement and our sense of balance.

Front 81

Motion Perception (Phi Phenomenon)

Back 81

Illusion movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off.

Front 82

Color Constancy

Back 82

Perceiving objects as having consistent color even if changing light alters the wave lengths reflected.

Front 83

Shape and Size Consistancy

Back 83

Ability to perceive familiar objects as unchanging in shape or size.