Ap Psych Chapter 4

Front 1

Sensation

Back 1

the operation or function of the senses; perception or awareness of stimuli through the senses.

Front 2

Perception

Back 2

the act or faculty of perceiving, or apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind; cognition; understanding.

Front 3

Bottom-up processing

Back 3

In the bottom-up processing approach, perception starts at the sensory input, the stimulus.

Front 4

Top-down perception

Back 4

Top-down processing is defined as the development of pattern recognition through the use of contextual information.

Front 5

Selective attention

Back 5

the capacity for or process of reacting to certain stimuli selectively when several occur simultaneously.

Front 6

Inattentional blindness

Back 6

is a psychological lack of attention that is not associated with any vision defects or deficits

Front 7

Change blindness

Back 7

Change blindness is the failure to notice an obvious change.

Front 8

Tranduction

Back 8

reasoning from specific cases to general cases, typically employed by children during their development

Front 9

Psychophysics

Back 9

the branch of psychology that deals with the relationships between physical stimuli and mental phenomena.

Front 10

Absolute threshold

Back 10

smallest level of energy required by an external stimulus to be detectable by the human senses

Front 11

Signal Dectection Theory

Back 11

means to quantify the ability to discern between information-bearing patterns (sublimni

Front 12

Subliminal

Back 12

below the threshold of sensation or consciousness

Front 13

Priming

Back 13

a substance that prepares something for use or action

Front 14

Difference threshold

Back 14

the smallest amount by which two sensory stimuli can differ in order for an individual to perceive them as different.

Front 15

Webers Law.

Back 15

the concept that a just-noticeable difference in a stimulus is proportional to the magnitude of the original stimulus

Front 16

Sensory adaption

Back 16

is a change over time in the responsiveness of the sensory system to a constant stimulus.

Front 17

perceptual set

Back 17

mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another (for example, due to suggestion or expectations based on prior learning)

Front 18

extrasensory perception (ESP)

Back 18

the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition

Front 19

Parapsychology

Back 19

the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis

Front 20

Wavelength

Back 20

the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next.

Front 21

Hue

Back 21

the dimension of color that is determine by the wavelength of light

Front 22

Intensity

Back 22

the quality of being intense.

Front 23

Pupil

Back 23

the adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters.

Front 24

Iris

Back 24

a ring of muscle tissue that forms the color portions of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening.

Front 25

Lens

Back 25

the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina.

Front 26

Retina

Back 26

the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye

Front 27

Accommodation

Back 27

the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina.

Front 28

Rods

Back 28

retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray

Front 29

Cones

Back 29

Receptors cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. The cones detect fine details and give rise to color sensation.

Front 30

Optic nerve

Back 30

the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain.

Front 31

Blind spot

Back 31

the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye; no receptors cells are located there. Creates a gap in our vision that is "filled" by the brain.

Front 32

Fovea

Back 32

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

Front 33

Feature detectors

Back 33

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

Front 34

Parallel processing

Back 34

The processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously

Front 35

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic theory

Back 35

the theory that the retina contains three different colors receptors-one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue-which when stimulated in combination can produce the perception of any color.

Front 36

Opponent-Process theory

Back 36

the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision; useful for explaining the phenomenon of "after-images"

Front 37

Gestalt

Back 37

a perceptual whole; derived from German word meaning "form" or "whole"

Front 38

Figure ground

Back 38

A gestalt perceptual phenomenon; the organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings

Front 39

Grouping

Back 39

the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups

Front 40

Depth perception

Back 40

the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance

Front 41

Visual cliff

Back 41

The imaginary drop.

Front 42

Binocular cues

Back 42

depth cues that require the combined input of both eyes

Front 43

Retinal disparity

Back 43

a binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing the images of the retinas of the two eyes

Front 44

Monocular cues

Back 44

depth cues that only require input from one eye; often used in 2D art to create illusion of depth

Front 45

Phi phenomenon

Back 45

an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in rapid succession

Front 46

Perceptual constancy

Back 46

perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent shapes, size, lightness, and color) even as illumination and retinal images change

Front 47

Color constancy

Back 47

How much pigment of a color you have.

Front 48

Perceptual adaptation

Back 48

the ability to adjust to an altered perceptual reality; in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or inverted visual field (as when wearing visual displacement goggles).

Front 49

Audition

Back 49

A tryout of the sorts

Front 50

Frequency

Back 50

the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time.

Front 51

Pitch

Back 51

sound information that depends on frequency (or wavelength) of sound waves

Front 52

Middle ear

Back 52

Middle ear the chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window.

Front 53

Middle ear

Back 53

the chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window.

Front 54

Cochlea

Back 54

a coiled bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.

Front 55

Inner ear

Back 55

the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs.

Front 56

Sensorineural hearing loss

Back 56

hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptors cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness.

Front 57

Conduction hearing loss

Back 57

hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.

Front 58

Cochlear implant

Back 58

a device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea

Front 59

Place theory

Back 59

The theory that something is in a place

Front 60

Frequency theory

Back 60

The theory of the exact correct pitch.

Front 61

Gate-control theory

Back 61

You control what comes in and out of you.

Front 62

Sensory interaction

Back 62

The interaction of your five senses.

Front 63

Kinethesia

Back 63

awareness of the position and movement of the parts of the body by means of sensory organs in the muscles and joints.

Front 64

Vestibular sense

Back 64

is the sensory system that provides the leading contribution to the sense of balance and spatial orientation for the purpose of coordinating movement with balance.

Front 65

Embodied cognition

Back 65

growing research program in cognitive science that emphasizes the formative role the environment plays in the development of cognitive processes.