Psychology 4 And 5

Front 1

Define distal stimulus.

Back 1

An object or event in the outside world.

Front 2

Define proximal stimulus.

Back 2

The energies from the outside world that directly reach our sense organs.

Front 3

Define psychophysics.

Back 3

An approach to perception that relates the characteristics of physical stimuli to the sensory experiences they produce.

Front 4

Define absolute threshold.

Back 4

The smallest quantity of a stimulus that an individual can detect.

Front 5

Define difference threshold.

Back 5

The smallest amount that a given stimulus must be increased or decreased so that an individual can detect the difference.

Front 6

Define just noticeable difference.

Back 6

The smallest difference that an organism can reliably detect between two stimuli.

Front 7

Define Weber's Law.

Back 7

The observation that the size of the difference threshold is proportional to the intensity of the standard stimulus.

Front 8

Define Fechner's Law.

Back 8

The observation that the strenght of a sensation is proportional to the log of physical stimulus. This does not hold up for everything--a small increase in stimulus causes large increase in pain.

Front 9

Define perceptual sensitivity.

Back 9

An organism's ability to detect a signal.

Front 10

Define decision criteria.

Back 10

An organism's rule for how much evidence it needs before responding.

Front 11

Define signal-detection theory.

Back 11

The theory that perceiving or not perceiving a stimulus is actually a judgement about whether a momentary sensory experience is due to background noise alone or the background noise plus a signal.

Front 12

Define payoff matrix.

Back 12

The pattern of benefits and costs associated with certain types of responses.

Front 13

Define transduction.

Back 13

The process through which a physical stimulus is converted into a signal within the nervous system.

Front 14

Define sensory coding.

Back 14

The process through which the nervous system represents the qualities of the incoming stimulus--whether auditory or visual, for example, or whether a red light or a green one, a sour taste or a sweet one.

Front 15

What are the two aspects of sensory coding?

Back 15

psychological intensity- difference between a bright light and a dim one;
sensory quality- how the nervous system represents the difference tween vision and hearing, or a high pitched note and a low one;

Front 16

Define specificity theory.

Back 16

The proposal that different sensory qualities are signaled by different quality-specific neurons. This is correct in only a few cases (pain).

Front 17

Define pattern theory.

Back 17

The proposal that different sensory qualities are encoded by specific patterns of firing among relevant neurons.

Front 18

Define sensory adaptation.

Back 18

The process by which the sensitivity to a stimulus declines if the stimulus is presented for an extended period of time.

Front 19

Define kinesthesis.

Back 19

The sensations generated by receptors of the muscles, tendons, and joints that inform us of our skeletal movement.

Front 20

Define vestibular senses.

Back 20

The sensations generated by receptors in the semicircular canals of the inner ear that inform us about the head's orientation and movements.

Front 21

Define skin senses.

Back 21

The group of senses, including pressure, warmth, cold, and pain, through which we gain information about our immediate surroundings. fits specific coding theory

Front 22

Define nociceptors.

Back 22

Receptors in the skin that give rise to the sense of pain; they respond to various forms of tissue damage and to temperature extremes.

Front 23

What are the two types of nociceptors?

Back 23

A-delta fibers- rapid transmission of information and are responsible for pain when first injured;
C-fibers- unmyelinated, dull ache after injury;

Front 24

Define gate control theory.

Back 24

The proposal that pain sensations must pass through a neural gate to reach the brain and can be blocked at that gate by neurons that inhibit signals from the nociceptors.

Front 25

What is counterirritation.

Back 25

The phenomenon in which painful sensations from one part of the body trigger the gate neurons and thus decrease the sensitivity to pain elsewhere.

Front 26

What are the two aspects to pain?

Back 26

sensation and emotion.

Front 27

Define olfactory epithelium.

Back 27

A mucous membrane at the top of the nasal cavity; contains the olfactory receptor neurons that respond to airborne molecules called odorants.

Front 28

Define glomeruli.

Back 28

Sites in the brain's olfactory bulb where signals from the smell receptors converge.

Front 29

Define pheromones.

Back 29

Biologically produced odorants that convey information to other members of the species.

Front 30

Define papillae.

Back 30

Structures on the tongue that contain the taste buds, which in turn contain taste receptors.

Front 31

What are the types of taste receptors?

Back 31

Salt, sour, sweet, umami. They all responds to all tastants, but respond most strongly to the preferred one.

Front 32

Define sound waves.

Back 32

Successive pressure variations in the air that vary in amplitude and wavelength.

Front 33

Define cochlea.

Back 33

The coiled structure in the inner ear that contains the basilar membrane.

Front 34

Define eardrum.

Back 34

The taut membrane that transmits the vibrations caused by sound waves and from the auditory canal to the ossicles in the middle ear.

Front 35

Define oval window.

Back 35

The membrane separating the middle ear from the inner ear.

Front 36

Define auditory ossicles.

Back 36

The three bones of the middle ear that transmit the vibrations of the eardrum to the oval window.

Front 37

Define basilar membrane.

Back 37

A membrane running the length of the cochlea; sound waves cause a deformation of this membrane, bending the hair cells in the cochlea and thus stimulating the auditory receptors.

Front 38

What are the three auditory ossicles?

Back 38

The malleus (hammer), incus (anvil), and stapes (stirrup).

Front 39

Define hair cells.

Back 39

The auditory receptors in the cochlea, lodged between the basilar membrane and other membranes above.

Front 40

Define place theory.

Back 40

A proposal about pitch perception stating that regions of the basilar membrane respond to particular sound frequencies, and the nervous system interprets the excitation from different basilar regions as different pitches.

Front 41

What is the difference between place theory and frequency of firing?

Back 41

Place theory plays a larger role for high pitched sounds. However for frequencies lower than 50 Hz, the basilar membrane deforms equally, so frequency of firing is more important. (firing of auditory nerve cells corresponds to peaks of sound waves).

Front 42

Define timbre.

Back 42

The quality of a sound apart from its pitch or loudness; it enables us to distinguish a clarinet from an oboe, or one person's voice from another.

Front 43

What is the path of an auditory signal?

Back 43

Cochlea to midbrain to geniculate nucleus in thalamus, to auditory projection area in temporal lobe

Front 44

What is a tonotopic map.

Back 44

A map which areas respond to which tones most preferably.

Front 45

What is the visible spectrum?

Back 45

360-750 nm; red is 700 and violet is 400

Front 46

Define retinal image.

Back 46

The image of an object that is projected on the retina. Its size increases with the size of the object and decreases with the distance from the eye.

Front 47

How does the lens change with distance?

Back 47

Ligaments pull it flat for distances farther away.

Front 48

Remember rods, cones, fovea.

Back 48

low intensity low acuity black and white, color, place where cones are.

Front 49

photoreceptors to bipolar cells to ganglion cells to optic nerve to lateral geniculate nucleus to cortex; horizontal and amacrine cells allow for lateral signaling

Back 49

What is the path of a visual signal?

Front 50

Define photopigment.

Back 50

A chemical in the photoreceptors that changes its form in response to light, producing an electrical change that signals to the nervous system that light is present.

Front 51

How does the visual system respond to boundaries?

Back 51

It detects brightness boundaries and amplifies them by edge enhancement.

Front 52

Define lateral inhibition.

Back 52

The pattern of interaction among neruons in the visual system in which activity in one neuron inhibits adjacent neurons responses.

Front 53

What are the three aspects of color?

Back 53

brightness, hue, saturation.

Front 54

Define trichromatic color vision.

Back 54

The principle underlying human color vision. Color vision occurs through the operation of three sets of cones, each maximally sensitive to a different wavelenght of light.

Front 55

What are complemantary hues.

Back 55

Hues that produce white light when the two are combined and a negative afterimage when compared to white.

Front 56

Define opponent process theory.

Back 56

A theory of color vsion that proposes three pairs of color antagonists: red/green, blue/yellow/ and white black. Excitation of neurons sensitive to one member of a pair automatically inhibits neurons sensitive to the other member.

Front 57

Define receptive field.

Back 57

For a particular cell in the visual system, the pattern of retinal stimulation that most effectively causes the cell to fire. For some cells, this pattern is defined simply in terms of retinal location; for others, the most effective input has a particular shape, color, or direction of motion.

Front 58

Define feature detectors.

Back 58

Neurons in the retina or brain that respond to specific attributes of the stimulus, such as movemnt, orientation, and so on.

Front 59

Define Gestalt psychology

Back 59

A theoretical approach that emphasizes the role of organized wholes in perception and other psychological processes.

Front 60

How do we tend to group things together?

Back 60

Proximity- in perception, the closemess of two figures. The closer together they are the more we tend to group them together.
Good continuation- we tend to perceive contours in a way that alters their direction as little as possible
Subjective contours- perceived as contours that do no exist physically. we tend to complete figures that have gaps in they by perceiving a contour as continuing along its original path.

Front 61

Define reversible figure.

Back 61

A visual pattern that easily allows more than one interpretaion, in some cases changing the specification of the figure and ground.

Front 62

ones that explain only parts of the stimulus, one that involve contradictions, and one that depend on accident or coincidence

Back 62

What do we try to avoid in interpreting our input?

Front 63

Define visual search.

Back 63

A task in which participants are asked to determine whether a specified target is within a field of stimuli.

Front 64

Define feature net.

Back 64

A model of pattern recognition involving a network of detectors and having feature detectors as the network's starting point (hierarchy).

Front 65

What are geons?

Back 65

simple geometric figures that can be combined to create all other shapes. An early step in some modules of object recognition is determining which geons are present.

Front 66

Define parvo cells.

Back 66

Ganglion cells that, because of their sensitivity to differences in hue, are particularly suited to perceiving color and form.

Front 67

Define magno cells.

Back 67

Ganglion cells that, because of their sensitivity to brightness changes, are particularly suited to perceiving motion and depth.

Front 68

Cells responsible for different things (form vs. color vs. motioin) work at the same time. It allows for faster response and for sharpening the signal (a shape can be sharpened by noting how it is moving vice verse etc).

Back 68

What is and are the benefits of parallel processing?

Front 69

Define the "what" system.

Back 69

The visual pathway leading from the visual cortex to the temporal lobe; especially involved in identifying object. inferotemporal cortex

Front 70

Define the "where" system.

Back 70

the visual pathway leading from the visual cortex to the parietal lobe; especially involved in locating objects in space and coordinating movements; posterior parietal cortex

Front 71

Define binding problem

Back 71

the problem confronted by the brain of recombining the elements of a stimulus

Front 72

Neural synchrony- different groups of neurons firing in synchrony show which sensory elements belong together.

Back 72

How is the binding problem solved?

Front 73

Define perceptual constancy.

Back 73

The accurate perception of certain attributes of a distal object, such as shape, size, and brightness, despite changes in the proximal stimulus caused by variations in our viewing circumstance.

Front 74

Define unconscious inference.

Back 74

A process postulated by Hermann von Huelmholtz to explain certain perceptual phenomena such as size constancy. For example, an object is perceived to be at a certain distance and this is unconsciously taken into account in assessing its retinal image size, with the result that size constancy is maintained.

Front 75

Define depth cues.

Back 75

Sources of information that signal the distance from the observer to the distal stimulus.

Front 76

Define binocular disparity.

Back 76

A depth cue based on the differences between the two eyes' views of the world. This difference becomes less pronounced the farther an object is from the observer.

Front 77

Define monocular depth cues.

Back 77

Features of the visual stimulus that indicate distance even if the stimulus is viewed with only one eye. (lens adjustment)

Front 78

Define pictorial cues.

Back 78

Patterns that can be represented on a flat surface in order to create a sense of a three-dimensional object or scene.

Front 79

Define interposition.

Back 79

A monocular cue to distance that relies on the fact that objects farther away are blocked from view by closer objects.

Front 80

Define linear perspective.

Back 80

A cue for distance basedon the fact that parallel lines seem to converge as they get farther away from the viewer.

Front 81

Define motion parallax.

Back 81

A depth cue based on the fact that, as an observer moves, the retinal images of the nearby objects move more rapidly than do the retinal images of objects farther away.

Front 82

Define motion detectors.

Back 82

Cells in the visual cortex that are sensitive to an image moving in a particular direction across the retina.

Front 83

Define apparent movement.

Back 83

The percption of movement produced by stimuli that are stationary but are presented first at one position and then, at an appropriate time interval, presented at a different position.

Front 84

Define induced motion.

Back 84

Perceived movement of a stationary stimulus, usually created by movement of a surrounding framework or nearby objects.

Front 85

Define correspondence problem.

Back 85

As your view changes, the perceptual task of determining which aspects of the current view correspond to which aspects of the view seen a moment ago.

Front 86

How do selection and searching relate to stimuli.

Back 86

We select which stimuli interests us and rely on that system to perceive it further. When one is doing a conjunction search (target defined by a combination of features) it takes much longer.

Front 87

Define illusory conjunction.

Back 87

A pattern of errors in which observers correctly perceive the features present in a display, such as color and shape, but misperceive how they were combined. For example, they might report seeing a green O and red X, when a green X and red O were presented.

Front 88

Define priming.

Back 88

The process through which a detector or portion of the nervous system is prepared for an upcoming input, making it easier for the participant to recognize the input.