General Psychology/chapter 4

Front 1

The stimulation of sense organs. Involves the absorption of energy, such as light or sound waves, by sensory organs, such as eyes and ears.

Back 1

sensation

Front 2

The selection, organization, and interpretation of sensory input. Involves organizing and translating sensory input into something meaningful.

Back 2

perception

Front 3

The study of how physical stimuli are translated into psychological experience.

Back 3

psychophysics

Front 4

The minimum stimulus intensity that an organism can detect for a specific type of sensory input. This describes the boundaries of an organism's sensory capabilities.

Back 4

absolute threshold

Front 5

The smallest difference in stimulus intensity that a specific sense can detect. This becomes larger as stimuli increase in magnitude.

Back 5

just noticeable difference (JND)

Front 6

This proposes that the detection of stimuli involves decision processes as well as sensory processes, which are both influenced by a variety of factors besides stimulus intensity.

Back 6

signal-detection theory

Front 7

The registration of sensory input without conscious awareness.

Back 7

subliminal perception (limen is another term for threshold,so subliminal means below threshold)

Front 8

A gradual decline in sensitivity to prolonged stimulation.

Back 8

sensory adaptation

Front 9

A transparent eye structure that focuses the light rays falling on the retina. This is made up of soft tissue, capable of adjustments that facilitate a process called accommodation.

Back 9

lens

Front 10

Close objects are seen clearly but distant objects appear blurry because the focus of light from distant objects falls a little short of the retina.

Back 10

nearsightedness

Front 11

Distant objects are seen clearly but close objects appear blurry because the focus of light from close objects falls behind the retina.

Back 11

farsightedness

Front 12

The opening in the center of the iris that permits light to pass into the rear chamber of the eye.

Back 12

pupil

Front 13

The neural tissue lining the inside back surface of the eye; it absorbs light, processes images, and sends visual information to the brain.

Back 13

retina

Front 14

A hole in the retina where the optic nerve fibers exit the eye.

Back 14

optic disk

Front 15

Specialized visual receptors that play a key role in daylight vision and color vision. Concentrated most heavily in the center of the retina and quickly fall off in density toward its periphery.

Back 15

cones

Front 16

The tiny spot in the center of the retina that contains only cones; visual acuity is greatest at this spot.

Back 16

fovea

Front 17

Specialized visual receptors that play a key role in night vision and peripheral vision. Their density is greatest just outside the fovea and gradually decreases toward the periphery of the retina.

Back 17

rods

Front 18

The process in which the eyes become more sensitive to light in low illumination.

Back 18

dark adaptation

Front 19

The process whereby the eyes become less sensitive to light in high illumination.

Back 19

light adaptation

Front 20

The retinal area that, when stimulated, affects the firing of that cell.

Back 20

receptive field of a visual cell

Front 21

This occurs when neural activity in a cell opposes activity in surrounding cells.

Back 21

lateral antagonism

Front 22

The point at which the optic nerves from the inside half of each eye cross over and then project to the opposite half of the brain.

Back 22

optic chiasm

Front 23

Involves simultaneously extracting different kinds of information from the same input.

Back 23

parallel processing

Front 24

Neurons that respond selectively to very specific features of more complex stimuli.

Back 24

feature detectors

Front 25

This works by removing some wavelengths of light, leaving less light than was originally there.

Back 25

subtractive color mixing

Front 26

This works by superimposing lights, putting more light in the mixture than exists in any one light by itself.

Back 26

additive color mixing

Front 27

This theory of color vision holds that the human eye has three types of receptors with differing sensitivities to different light wavelengths. First stated by Thomas Young and modified later by Hermann von Helmholtz.

Back 27

trichromatic theory (tri for "three" and chroma for "color").

Front 28

This encompasses a variety of deficiencies in the ability to distinguish among colors.

Back 28

color blindness

Front 29

These are the pairs of colors that produce gray tones when mixed together.

Back 29

complementary colors

Front 30

A visual image that persists after a stimulus is removed.

Back 30

afterimage

Front 31

This theory of color vision holds that color perception depends on receptors that make antagonistic responses to three pairs of colors. This theory was proposed by Ewald Hering in 1878.

Back 31

opponent process theory

Front 32

A drawing that is compatible with two interpretations that can shift back and forth.

Back 32

reversible figure

Front 33

A readiness to perceive a stimulus in a particular way.

Back 33

perceptual set

Front 34

This involves the failure to see visible objects or events because one's attention is focused elsewhere.

Back 34

in-attentional blindness

Front 35

The process of detecting specific elements in visual input and assembling them into a more complex form.

Back 35

feature analysis

Front 36

A progression from individual elements to the whole.

Back 36

bottom-up processing

Front 37

A progression from the whole to the elements.

Back 37

top-down processing

Front 38

These involve the perception of contours where none actually exist.

Back 38

subjective contours

Front 39

The illusion of movement created by presenting visual stimuli in rapid succession. First described by Max Wertheimer in 1912.

Back 39

phi phenomenon

Front 40

Stimuli that lie in the distance (that is, in the world outside the body).

Back 40

distal stimuli

Front 41

The stimulus energies that impinge directly on sensory receptors.

Back 41

proximal stimuli

Front 42

An inference about which distal stimuli could be responsible for the proximal stimuli sensed.

Back 42

perceptual hypothesis

Front 43

Involves the interpretation of visual cues that indicate how near or far away objects are.

Back 43

depth perception

Front 44

Clues about distance based on the differing views of the two eyes.

Back 44

binocular depth cues

Front 45

Refers to the fact that objects within 25 feet project images to slightly different locations on the right and left retinas, so the right and left eyes see slightly different views of the object.

Back 45

retinal disparity

Front 46

Involves sensing the eyes converging toward each other as they focus on closer objects.

Back 46

convergence

Front 47

Clues about distance based on the image in either eye alone.

Back 47

monocular depth cues

Front 48

Involves images of objects at different distances moving across the retina at different rates.

Back 48

motion parallax

Front 49

Clues about distance that can be given in a flat picture.

Back 49

pictorial depth cues

Front 50

Involves an apparently inexplicable discrepancy between the appearance of a visual stimulus and its physical reality.

Back 50

visual illusion

Front 51

A tendency to experience a stable perception in the face of continually changing sensory input.

Back 51

perceptual constancy

Front 52

A fluid-filled, coiled tunnel that contains the receptors for hearing.

Back 52

cochlea

Front 53

This runs the length of the spiraled cochlea, and holds the auditory receptors.

Back 53

basilar membrane

Front 54

This holds that perception of pitch corresponds to the vibration of different portions along the basilar membrane.

Back 54

place theory

Front 55

This holds that perception of pitch corresponds to the rate at which the entire basilar membrane vibrates.

Back 55

frequency theory

Front 56

Locating the source of sound in space.

Back 56

auditory localization

Front 57

The sensory system for taste.

Back 57

gustatory system

Front 58

Revealed that people vary considerably in their sensitivity to certain tastes. These individual differences depend in part on the density of taste buds on the tongue, which appears to be a matter of genetic inheritance.

Back 58

Linda Bartoshuk

Front 59

A particularly important contributor to psychophysics who published pioneering work on the subject in 1860. Important to this persons research was the principles of absolute threshold and just noticeable difference.

Back 59

Gustav Fechner

Front 60

Modified Thomas Young's trichromatic theory and theorized that the eye contains specialized receptors sensitive to the specific wavelengths associated with red, green, and blue. This person also proposed place theory of hearing, this states that specific sound frequencies vibrate specific portions of the basilar membrane, producing distinct pitches.

Back 60

Hermann Von Helmholtz

Front 61

Identified various types of specialized cells in the primary visual cortex that respond to different stimuli. Their work eventually earned them a Nobel prize in 1981. The key point to their research is that the cells in the visual cortex seem to be highly specialized, which are characterized as feature detectors.

Back 61

David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel

Front 62

Devised the gate-control theory of pain. They suggested that this imaginary gate can be closed by signals from peripheral receptors or by signals from the brain. They theorized that the latter mechanism can help explain how factors such as attention and expectations can shut off pain signals. Although there research has merit, relatively little support has been found for the neural circuitry that they originally hypothesized about in the 1960's.

Back 62

Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall

Front 63

A Gestalt psychologist, who first described the phi phenomenon in 1912.

Back 63

Max Wertheimer

Front 64

The sensory system for smell.

Back 64

olfactory system

Front 65

This holds that incoming pain sensations must pass through a "gate" in the spinal cord that can be closed, thus blocking ascending pain signals.

Back 65

gate-control theory

Front 66

These are objects that can be represented in two-dimensional pictures but cannot exist in three-dimensional space.

Back 66

impossible figures