Psych Chapter 4

Front 1

What is transduction

Back 1

The conversion of physical into neutral energy

Front 2

What is psychophysics?

Back 2

The study of how people psychologically perceive physical stimuli.

Front 3

What is absolute threshold?

Back 3

The lowest intensity level of a stimulus a person can detect half of the time.

Front 4

What is signal detection theory?

Back 4

The viewpoint that both stimulus intensity and the decision making process are involved in the detection of a stimulus.

Front 5

What is a difference threshold?

Back 5

The smallest amount of change between two stimuli that a person can detect half of the time. Also called "just noticeable difference".

Front 6

What is a perceptual set?

Back 6

The effect of frame of mind on perception; a tendency to perceive stimuli in a certain manner.

Front 7

What is the cornea?

Back 7

The clear hard covering that protects the lens of the eye.

Front 8

What is the pupil?

Back 8

The opening in the iris through which light enters the eye.

Front 9

What is the iris?

Back 9

The muscle that forms the colored part of the eye; it adjusts the pupil to regulate the amount of light that enters the eye.

Front 10

What is the lens?

Back 10

The structure that sits behind the pupil; it bends the light rays that enter the eye to focus images on the retina.

Front 11

What is the retina?

Back 11

The thin layer of nerve tissues that lines the back of the eye.

Front 12

What is accommodation?

Back 12

The process by which the muscles control the shape of the lens to adjust to viewing objects at different angles.

Front 13

What is the order, most to least superficial, of the retinal cells?

Back 13

Ganglion cells, amacrine cells, bipolar cells, horizontal cells, photoreceptors.

Front 14

What are ganglion cells?

Back 14

The retinal cell type that carries visual information from the eye to the brain; their axons make up the optic nerve.

Front 15

What are amacrine cells?

Back 15

Retinal cells responsible for modulating activity at the bipolar-ganglion cell synapse.

Front 16

What are bipolar cells?

Back 16

The retinal cell type that links the photoreceptors with the ganglion cells.

Front 17

What are horizontal cells?

Back 17

Retinal cells responsible for modulating activity at the photoreceptor-bipolar cell synapse.

Front 18

What are photoreceptors?

Back 18

Cells in the retina called rods and cones that conduct light energy into nerve energy; they are transducers.

Front 19

What are rods?

Back 19

Photoreceptors that function in low illumination and play a key role in night vision.

Front 20

What are cones?

Back 20

Photoreceptors responsible for color vision and are most functional in bright light.

Front 21

Which is more numerous, rods or cones?

Back 21

Rods.

Front 22

Where are rods primarily located?

Back 22

The outer periphery of the retina.

Front 23

Where are cones primarily located?

Back 23

The fovea.

Front 24

What is the fovea?

Back 24

A spot on the back of the retina that contains the highest concentration of cones; place of clearest vision.

Front 25

What is visual acuity? What does it depend on?

Back 25

The ability to see clearly. Cones.

Front 26

What is rhodopsin?

Back 26

The light-sensitive protein responsible for transduction in rods.

Front 27

What are photopsins?

Back 27

The light-sensitive proteins responsible for transduction in cones; different photopsins are sensitive to student wavelengths of light.

Front 28

What is "bleached"?

Back 28

A term used to describe the inactivation of rhodopsin after maximal stimulation.

Front 29

What is the optic nerve?

Back 29

A structure composed of the axons of ganglion cells from the retina that carry visual information from the eye to the brain.

Front 30

What is the lateral geniculate nucleus?

Back 30

A cluster of neuron cell bodies in the thalamus.

Front 31

What did Hubel and Wiesels research provide the first evidence for?

Back 31

That the neurons in the visual cortex are highly specialized for detecting specific regions of visual space called receptive fields.

Front 32

What is the receptive field?

Back 32

The area of visual space that stimulates activity in a particular neuron.

Front 33

What are feature detectors?

Back 33

Neurons in the visual cortex that analyze the retinal image and respond to specific aspects of shapes, such as angles and movements.

Front 34

What are the three yours of neurons in the visual cortex that act as feature detectors?

Back 34

Simple cells, complex cells, hypercomplex cells.

Front 35

What do simple cells do?

Back 35

Respond to very specific information, such as a bar of light oriented at a particular angle.

Front 36

What do complex cells do?

Back 36

Receive input from many simple cells and ate receptive to particular stimuli in different parts of the receptive field. Also receptive to movement of an image unlike simple cells.

Front 37

What do hypercomplex cells do?

Back 37

Receive input from complex cells and so fire in response to patterns of lines.

Front 38

How did Hubel and Wiesel discover that some cortical neurons responded to seeing lines of a specific orientation?

Back 38

By inserting electrodes into single cells in the visual cortex.

Front 39

What is apparent motion?

Back 39

When we think something stationary is moving.

Front 40

Name 7 monocular cues.

Back 40

Motion parallax, linear perspective, texture gradient, relative image size, atmospheric perspective, interposition, light + shading.

Front 41

What are the major Gestalt laws of visual organization?

Back 41

Similarity, continuity, proximity, closure, and figure-ground.

Front 42

What is similarity?

Back 42

The Gestalt tendency to group like objects together in visual perception.

Front 43

What is continuity?

Back 43

The Gestalt tendency to see points or lines in such a way that they follow a continuous path.

Front 44

What is proximity?

Back 44

The Gestalt tendency to group objects together that are near one another.

Front 45

What is closure?

Back 45

The Gestalt tendency to see a whole object even when complete information isn't available.

Front 46

What is figure-ground?

Back 46

The way in which we really separate a figure from it's background in order to perceive it. Ex: face/vase illusion.

Front 47

What are 350nm, 550nm, and 750nm as colours?

Back 47

Blue, green, and red respectively.

Front 48

What is the opponent process theory?

Back 48

The theory that colour vision results from cones linked together in the opposing pairs of colours so that activation of one member of the pair inhibits activity in the other.

Front 49

What are the three opposing colour pairs?

Back 49

Blue/yellow, red/green, black/white.

Front 50

What are dichromats?

Back 50

People who only have two functional photopsins (red/green colour blindness).

Front 51

What are the three physical properties of sound that affect hearing?

Back 51

Amplitude, frequency, and purity.

Front 52

What is amplitude?

Back 52

The height our amplitude of a sound wave determines how loud it is.

Front 53

What is the spectrum of a sounds loudness?

Back 53

0dB - 171dB. 160+ can burst eardrums.

Front 54

What is frequency?

Back 54

The frequency of a wave, or how many waves occur in a given period of time, determines a sounds pitch.

Front 55

How is frequency measured?

Back 55

In units called hertz (hZ) which is how many times the wave cycles per second. Higher frequency = higher pitch.

Front 56

What is the range of human pitch perception?

Back 56

20hZ - 20,000hZ.

Front 57

What are sounds below 20hZ and above 20,000hZ called?

Back 57

Subsonic and supersonic respectively.

Front 58

What range are most sounds we hear in?

Back 58

400-4000hZ.

Front 59

What range is the human voice usually in?

Back 59

200-800hZ.

Front 60

What are the pinnae?

Back 60

Part of the outer ear that funnels sounds into the auditory canal.

Front 61

What is the auditory canal?

Back 61

The passage sounds travels along to get to the eardrum.

Front 62

What two structures comprise the outer ear?

Back 62

The auditory canal and the tympanic membrane.

Front 63

What structures make up the middle ear?

Back 63

The hammer, anvil, and stirrup (all are bones).

Front 64

What structures make up the inner ear?

Back 64

The semicircular canals and cochlea.

Front 65

What are the semicircular canals?

Back 65

Structure of the inner ear involved in maintaining balance.

Front 66

What is the cochlea?

Back 66

A bony tube of the inner ear which is curled like a snail shell and filled with fluid.

Front 67

What is the basilar membrane?

Back 67

A membrane that runs through the cochlea; contains the hair cells.

Front 68

What are hair cells?

Back 68

Inner ear sensory receptors that transduce sound vibrations into neural impulses.

Front 69

What is the cochlea nerve cell?

Back 69

The neuron that synapses with hair cells; is axons make up the auditory nerve.

Front 70

What is the auditory nerve?

Back 70

The nerve that transmits auditory information yo the brain.

Front 71

What is the site of transduction in the auditory system?

Back 71

The cochlea.

Front 72

What are the two methods the cochlea uses to code the frequency of sounds?

Back 72

Phase locking and place coding.

Front 73

Describe how the cilia bend in relation to the frequency of a sound.

Back 73

For sounds less than 3000hZ the cilia bend at the same rate as the frequency of the wave. At higher frequencies the sounds is coded based on what cilia ate activated.

Front 74

What structures is responsible for the transduction of sound vibrations into action potentials?

Back 74

Hair cells.

Front 75

How many kinds of mechanoreceptors do we have?

Back 75

4.

Front 76

What is psychogenic or psychosomatic pain?

Back 76

Feeling pain when there is no obvious tissue damage.

Front 77

Pathological pain is a characteristic of what two disorders mentioned in the text book?

Back 77

Chronic pain and fibromyalgia.

Front 78

What are some of the brain structures activated by skin based pain?

Back 78

The thalamus, hypothalamus, limbic system, insula, and anterior cingulate cortex.

Front 79

What is the gate control theory of pain?

Back 79

The idea that the spinal cord regulates the experience of pain by either activating or suppressing neural networks called gates that transmit pain sensations to the brain.

Front 80

What are the brain regions active in both emotional and physical pain?

Back 80

The anterior cingulate cortex and insula.

Front 81

What are olfactory sensory neurons?

Back 81

The sensory receptors for smell that reside high up in the nose.

Front 82

What is the olfactory bulb?

Back 82

A forebrain structure that seems information either directly to the smell-processing areas in the cortex or indirectly to the cortex by way to the thalamus.

Front 83

What do the cilia in the nose do?

Back 83

Concert chemical information in odor molecules into neural impulses.

Front 84

Where is the primary olfactory cortex located?

Back 84

The temporal lobe.

Front 85

Where is the secondary olfactory cortex located?

Back 85

The frontal lobe near the eyes.

Front 86

What are papillae?

Back 86

Textured structures on the surface of the tongue that contain thousands of taste buds.

Front 87

What are taste buds?

Back 87

Structures inside of the papillae that contain the taste receptor cells.

Front 88

What are taste receptor cells?

Back 88

Sensory receptors for taste that reside in the taste buds.

Front 89

What five basic taste qualities can humans distinguish?

Back 89

Bitter, sweet, salty, sour, and savoury.

Front 90

What region of the brain is most involved in flavor perception?

Back 90

The orbitofrontal cortex.