Psychology

Front 1

Sensation

Back 1

simple stimulation of a sense organ

Front 2

perception

Back 2

the organization, identification, and interpretation of a sensation in order to form a mental representation

Front 3

transduction

Back 3

when many sensors in the body convert physical signals from the environment into encoded neural signals sent to the central nervous system

Front 4

Psychophysics

Back 4

methods that measure the strength of a stimulus and the observer's sensitivity to that stimulus

Front 5

Absolute Threshold

Back 5

the minimal intensity needed to just barely detect a stimulus in 50% of the trials

Front 6

just noticeable difference

Back 6

minimal change in a stimulus that can just barely be detected

Front 7

Weber's Law

Back 7

the just noticeable difference of a stimulus is a constant proportion despite variations in intensity

Front 8

Signal Detection

Back 8

the response to a stimulus depends both on a person's sensitivity to the stimulus in the presence of noise and on a person's decision criterion

Front 9

Sensory Adaptation

Back 9

sensitivity to prolonged stimulation tends to decline over time as an organism adapts to current conditions

Front 10

Visual Acuity

Back 10

the ability to see fine detail

Front 11

cornea

Back 11

light first passes through this and bends to send it to the pupil

Front 12

pupil

Back 12

a hole in the colored part of the eye

Front 13

iris

Back 13

controls the amount of light that can enter the eye

Front 14

retina

Back 14

a light-sensitive tissue lining the back of the eyeball

Front 15

accomodation

Back 15

the process by which the eye maintains a clear image on the retina

Front 16

Cones

Back 16

detect color, operate under normal daylight conditions, and allow us to focus on fine detail (photoreceptor cell in the retina)

Front 17

Rods

Back 17

become active under low light conditions for night vision (photoreceptor cell in the retina)

Front 18

Fovea

Back 18

an area of the retina where vision is the clearest and there are no rods at all

Front 19

Blind Spot

Back 19

a location in the visual field that produces no sensation on the retina

Front 20

color-opponent system

Back 20

pairs of visual neurons work in opposition

Front 21

visual form agnosia

Back 21

the inability to recognize objects by sight

Front 22

Binding Problem

Back 22

how features are linked together so that we see unified objects in our visual world rather than free-floating or miscombined features

Front 23

Illusory Conjuntion

Back 23

a perceptual mistake where features from multiple objects are incorrectly combined

Front 24

Feature-integration Theory

Back 24

focused attention is not required to detect the individual features that comprise a stimulus, such as the color, shape, size, and location of letters, but is required to bind those individual features together

Front 25

Perceptual Constancy

Back 25

even as aspects of sensory signals change, perception remains consistent

Front 26

Simplicity

Back 26

visual system selects the simplest or most likely interpretation of something (Gestalt psychology)

Front 27

Closure

Back 27

filling in missing elements of a visual scene

Front 28

Continuity

Back 28

edges or contours that have the same orientation (good continuation)

Front 29

Similarity

Back 29

regions that are similar in color, lightness, shape, or texture are perceived as belonging to the same object

Front 30

Proximity

Back 30

clumping objects together

Front 31

Common Fate

Back 31

elements of a visual image that move together are perceived as parts of a single moving object

Front 32

Template

Back 32

a mental representation that can be directly compared to a viewed shape in the retinal image

Front 33

Monocular depth cues

Back 33

aspects of a scene that yield information about depth when viewed with only one eye

Front 34

Linear Perspective

Back 34

parallel lines seem to converge as they recede into the distance

Front 35

Texture Gradient

Back 35

view a uniformly patterned surface

Front 36

Interposition

Back 36

occurs when one object partly blocks another

Front 37

Relative Height in the image

Back 37

depends on field position

Front 38

Binocular Disparity

Back 38

the difference in the retinal images of the two eyes that provides info about depth

Front 39

Apparent Motion

Back 39

perception of movement as a result of alternating signals appearing in rapid succession in different locations (flashing light vegas sign)

Front 40

Change Blindness

Back 40

when people fail to detect changes to the visual details of a scene

Front 41

Inattentional Blindness

Back 41

a failure to perceive objects that are not the focus of attention

Front 42

Pitch

Back 42

how high or low a sound is (changes in the physical frequency of a sound wave)

Front 43

Loudness

Back 43

a sound's intensity (amplitude)

Front 44

Timbre

Back 44

a listener's experience of sound quality or resonance (differences in the complexity of sound waves)

Front 45

Cochlea

Back 45

a fluid-filled tube that is the organ of auditory transduction

Front 46

basilar membrane

Back 46

a structure in the inner ear that undulates when vibrations from the ossicles reach the cochlear fluid

Front 47

Hair Cells

Back 47

specialized auditory receptor neurons embedded in the basilar membrane

Front 48

area A1

Back 48

a portion of the temporal lobe that contains the primary auditory cortex

Front 49

Place code

Back 49

different frequencies stimulate neural signals at specific places along the basilar membrane

Front 50

temporal code

Back 50

registers relatively low frequencies via the firing rate of action potentials entering the auditory nerve

Front 51

Haptic Perception

Back 51

the active exploration of the environment by touching and grasping objects with our hands

Front 52

Referred Pain

Back 52

sensory info from internal and external converges on the same nerve cells in the spinal cord

Front 53

Gate-control theory of pain

Back 53

signals arriving from pain receptors in the body can be stopped or gated, by interneurons in the spinal cord via feedback from two directions

Front 54

Vestibular System

Back 54

the three fluid-filled semicircular canals and adjacent organs located next to the cochlea in each inner ear (maintains balance)

Front 55

Olfactory receptor neurons

Back 55

receptor cells that initiate the sense of smell

Front 56

Olfactory Bulb

Back 56

a brain structure located above the nasal cavity beneath the frontal lobe

Front 57

Pheromones

Back 57

biochemical odorants emitted by other members of its species that can affect the animal's behavior or physiology

Front 58

taste buds

Back 58

(within papillae) the organ of taste transduction

Front 59

Five different tastes

Back 59

salt, sour, bitter, sweet, and umami