Psychology (Gerow-Chpt. 3) Development Throughout The Lifespan

Front 1

How we find out about the world, make judgments about it, learn from it, and remember what we have learned.

Back 1

Information Processing

Front 2

The act of detecting external stimuli and converting those stimuli into nervous system activity.

Back 2

Sensation

Front 3

A mechanism that converts energy from one form to another.

Back 3

Transducer

Front 4

A process involving the selection, organization, and interpretation of stimuli.

Back 4

Perception

Front 5

The minimum intensity of a stimulus needed to operate a sense organ

Back 5

Sensory Threshold

Front 6

The smallest difference between stimulus
attributes that can be detected.

Back 6

Difference Threshold

Front 7

A process that occurs when our sensory experience decreases with continued exposure to a stimulus.

Back 7

Sensory Adaptation

Front 8

The process in which visual receptors become more sensitive with time spent in the dark.

Back 8

Dark Adaptation

Front 9

Perceptual selection involves two factors, they are...

Back 9

1. Stimulus Factors
2. Personal Factors

Front 10

Stimulus Factors may be defined as...

Back 10

Those characteristics that make some stimuli more compelling no matter who the perceiver is.

Front 11

Personal Factors may be defined as...

Back 11

Those characteristics of the perceiver that influence which stimuli get attended to or perceived.

Front 12

The most important stimulus factor is ________.

Back 12

Contrast

Front 13

Contrast, in relation to stimulus factors, can be defined as...

Back 13

The extent to which a stimulus is physically different from the other stimuli around it.

Front 14

All else being equal, the more often a stimulus is presented the more likely we are to attend to it or perceive it. This is an example of the stimulus factor known as __________.

Back 14

Repetition

Front 15

Personal Factors that can influence perception can be categorized as...

Back 15

1. Motivation
2. Expectation
3. Past Experience

Front 16

When we are psychologically
predisposed, or expect to perceive
something, we have formed what?

Back 16

A Mental Set

Front 17

An attempt to organize, identify, and store stimuli in our memory based on information derived from our senses is an example of ...

Back 17

Bottom-Up Processing

Front 18

The process of selecting and perceiving stimuli based on what
the perceiver already knows is known as...

Back 18

Top-Down Processing

Front 19

In regard to perceptual organization, stimuli that are attended to and grouped together are...

Back 19

Figures

Front 20

In regard to perceptual organization, all the stimuli except those to which we are attending are
considered the ______.

Back 20

Ground (or Background)

Front 21

A basic principle of perceptual organization is...

Back 21

Figure-Ground Relationships

Front 22

Processing stimuli based on a Bottom-Up approach can be broken down into...

Back 22

1. Proximity (or Contiquity)
2. Similarity
3. Continuity
4. Common Fate
5. Closure

Front 23

Stimuli occurring close together in space and time are perceived as belonging together and part of the same figure is a principle known as

Back 23

Proximity (or Contiquity)

Front 24

The principle claiming that stimuli that are alike or share properties tend to group together in perception.

Back 24

Similarity

Front 25

The principle claiming that we tend to see things as ending up consistent with the way they started.

Back 25

Continuity

Front 26

The tendency to group together in the same figure those elements of a scene that appear to move together in the same direction and at the same speed.

Back 26

Common Fate

Front 27

With regard to perceptual organization according to the bottom-up approach, filling in the gaps in our perceptual world is known as...

Back 27

Closure

Front 28

A phenomenon that many psychologists believe to be a special case of closure is...

Back 28

The perception of SUBJECTIVE CONTOURS. Which is...

Hint 28

A perception of an arrangement of lines and patterns that enable us to see figures that are not actually there.

Front 29

Some visual examples of subjective contours

Back 29

1. White triangle
2. Another white triangle
3. Square

Front 30

One of the most important principles of Psychology as it affects our everyday lives and the central importance of perception in our everyday lives is...

Back 30

What matters most to us is NOT what actually happened, but what we PERCEIVE to have happened.

Front 31

The ability to judge depth and distance reflects that we are simultaneously responding to a large number of _____ to depth and distance.

Back 31

Cues

Front 32

Cues that involve both eyes are called...

Back 32

Binocular cues

Front 33

The cue to depth derived from the fact that each eye gets a different view of the same three dimensional
object.

Back 33

Retinal Disparity

Front 34

The observation that a perceiver's
eyes turn inward toward each other
when viewing something up close.

Back 34

Convergence

Front 35

The process of changing the shape of the lens by contraction and relaxation of the ciliary muscles to focus images on the retina.

Back 35

Accommodation

Front 36

The six most important physical cues (sometimes called pictorial cues) we get from the structure of our environment are...

Back 36

1. Linear Perspective
2. Interposition
3. Relative Size
4. Texture Gradient
5. Patterns of Shading
6. Motion Parallax

Front 37

The fact that portions of objects that are spatially further away from our eyes appear smaller than portions that are spatially nearer our eyes.

Back 37

Linear Perspective

Front 38

The fact that objects in the foreground (spatially closer) tend to obscure objects in the background (spatially further away)

Back 38

Interposition

Front 39

Since very few stimuli in the world change their size, objects that appear larger are judged to be close. Conversely, objects that appear to be small are further away.

Back 39

Relative Size

Front 40

The fact that detail is more readily distinguished at closer distances.

Back 40

Textural Gradient

Front 41

How objects create patterns of light and shadow.

Back 41

Patterns of Shading

Front 42

When viewed from a parallel perspective, at speed, objects farther away appear to be stationary or moving much slower than objects spatially nearer.

Back 42

Motion Parallax

Front 43

True or false: perception of depth and distance is NOT susceptible to cultural constraints.

Back 43

False