Unit 3 Sensation And Perception: Ap Psych

Front 1

Sensation

Back 1

The process by which our sensory receptors and receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.

Front 2

Perception

Back 2

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful object and events.

Front 3

Stimulus

Back 3

Something that causes a psychological response.

Front 4

Transduction

Back 4

Conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation it is the transforming of stimulus energies such as sights, sounds, and smells into neural impulses that our brains can interpret.

Front 5

Sensory Adaptation

Back 5

Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.

Front 6

Habituation

Back 6

When organisms stop paying attention to stimuli that are often repeated and are of little or no importance.

Front 7

Electromagnetic Spectrum

Back 7

The entire range of wavelengths and or frequencies of electromagnetic radiation.

Front 8

Wavelength

Back 8

The distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next.

Front 9

Cornea

Back 9

White part of the eye that protects and helps reflect light, and bends light to provide focus.

Front 10

Pupil

Back 10

The adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters

Front 11

Iris

Back 11

a colored ring of muscle tissue that controls the size of the pupil opening

Front 12

Lens

Back 12

the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus on the retina.

Front 13

Retina

Back 13

The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual info.

Front 14

Blind Spot

Back 14

the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye creating a blind spot because no receptor cells are located there.

Front 15

Cones

Back 15

retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight and in well lit conditions. (color)

Front 16

Rods

Back 16

retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision. (when cones don't respond)

Front 17

Fovea

Back 17

the focal point in the retina around which the eyes cones cluster.

Front 18

Peripheral Vision

Back 18

The ability to see objects and movement outside of the direct line of vision.

Front 19

Distal Stimulus

Back 19

External source of stimulus as it exists in the world.

Front 20

Proximal Stimulus

Back 20

Physical stimulation of sense receptors (can also refer to neural activity that results form sensory transduction)

Front 21

Bipolar Cells

Back 21

nerve cells that combine impulses from cell receptors and send the results to ganglion cells.

Front 22

Ganglion Cells

Back 22

integrates impulses from ganglion cells into a single firing rate.

Front 23

Optic Nerve

Back 23

the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain.

Front 24

Optic chiasm

Back 24

the crossing of the two optic nerves at the base of the brain.

Front 25

Visual cortex

Back 25

Part of the cerebral cortex responsible for processing visual information.

Front 26

Trichromatic theory

Back 26

The theory that the retina contains three different color receptors - one most sensitive to red, one to green and one to blue, and when combined can produce any color.

Front 27

Afterimage

Back 27

An image that remains after a stimulus is removed, especially one which the colors are reversed.

Front 28

Colorblindness

Back 28

Inability or decreased ability to see color or tell color differences.

Front 29

Dichromatic

Back 29

Defective color vision in which one of the three cone pigments is missing.

Front 30

Monochromatic

Back 30

Complete color blindness; inability to discriminate hues, all colors of the spectrum appearing as a neutral gray.

Front 31

Opponent Process theory

Back 31

The theory that opposing retinal processes enables color vision.

Front 32

Auditory

Back 32

The sense or act of hearing.

Front 33

Amplitude

Back 33

Measure of how loud sound is. (Higher the crest of the wave, the louder)

Front 34

Frequency

Back 34

The number of complete wavelengths that pass through a paint at a given time. Determines the pitch of a sound.

Front 35

Loudness

Back 35

physical intensity of a sound is determined by its amplitude; sound waves with large amplitudes are experienced as loud measured decibels.

Front 36

Pitch

Back 36

the highness or lowness of a sound determined by the sound frequency.

Front 37

Ear Canal

Back 37

Connects the outer ear to the eardrum.

Front 38

Ear drum

Back 38

Tight membrane that vibrates with sound waves.

Front 39

Ossicles

Back 39

Series of three small bones in the middle ear (malleus, anvil, and stirrup) that vibrate when in contact with vibrations of the eardrum

Front 40

Malleus

Back 40

middle ear.

Front 41

Incus

Back 41

attached to the malleus and stapes; helps flow sound to the brain

Front 42

Stapes

Back 42

U-shaped bone that passes vibrations from itself to the cochlea. This is the smallest bone in the human body. 

Front 43

Oval Window

Back 43

the stapes presses on a membrane aka the oval window, and causes it to vibrate.

Front 44

Cochlea

Back 44

fluid filled rube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.

Front 45

Auditory Nerve

Back 45

the nerve that carries impulses from the cochlea to the cochlear nucleus of the brain.

Front 46

Place theory

Back 46

the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane in stimulated

Front 47

Frequency theory

Back 47

the theory that the rate of the nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch.

Front 48

Conductive deafness

Back 48

hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.

Front 49

Sensorineural deafness

Back 49

hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness.

Front 50

Gestation

Back 50

The period of development in the uterus from conception until birth; pregnancy.

Front 51

Taste bud

Back 51

taste bud structures inside the papillae of the tongue that contain the taste receptor cells

Front 52

Papillae

Back 52

bumps on your tongue that sense taste

Front 53

Olfaction

Back 53

Molecules that pass through out nostrils trigger receptor cells in our olfactory membrane which then fire our nerve, and the information is reported to our brain. (goes to temporal lobe and limbic system).

Front 54

Olfactory bulb

Back 54

receives odor molecules (from nostril) and communicates their nature to the brain.

Front 55

Olfactory cells

Back 55

a cell specialized for the reception of sensory stimuli caused by odors

Front 56

Amygdala

Back 56

a structure in the limbic system that is linked to emotions and aggression

Front 57

Hippocampus

Back 57

involved in how we process and store memory

Front 58

Touch

Back 58

Combines response to touch, pressure, pain and temperature.

Front 59

Cutaneous Receptors

Back 59

Type of sensory receptor; includes the pain and temperature receptors.

Front 60

Cold fibres

Back 60

Fibres in the thermoreceptor responsible for sensing cold.

Front 61

Warm fibres

Back 61

Fibres in the thermoreceptor responsible for sensing heat.

Front 62

Gate control theory

Back 62

The theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass through to the brain.

Front 63

endorphins

Back 63

Neurotransmitters involved in the primary feeling of well-being.

Front 64

Vestibular sense

Back 64

The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance

Front 65

Kinesthetic sense

Back 65

The system for sensing the position and movement, including the sense of balance.

Front 66

adaptation

Back 66

Trait with a functional role of an organism that's maintained and evolved by means of natural selection.

Front 67

absolute threshold

Back 67

the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time.

Front 68

Subliminal

Back 68

Below the threshold of consciousness-- is able to affect the mind without the awareness of that person.

Front 69

Difference threshold

Back 69

The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 % of the time.

Front 70

Weber's Law

Back 70

The principle that to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount)

Front 71

Selective Attention

Back 71

focusing consciously on a particular stimulus (cocktail party affect)

Front 72

Attentional resource

Back 72

people have a set amount of attention that they can choose to allocate according to what the task requires

Front 73

signal detection theory

Back 73

an approach to measuring detection thresholds: this theory takes into consideration that there are four possible outcomes on each trial in a detection experiment

Front 74

response criteria

Back 74

A theory explaining how a person is able to respond to one or more specific stimuli against a background of noise.

Front 75

false positive

Back 75

A test result that is incorrect because the test indicated a condition or finding that does not exist.

Front 76

false negative

Back 76

Failure to reject a null hypothesis.

Front 77

top down processing

Back 77

Information processing guided by higher-level-mental processes

Front 78

Bottom up processing

Back 78

perception that is driven by the sensory qualities of the stimulus in the environment

Front 79

schemata

Back 79

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

Front 80

perpetual set

Back 80

a mental pre disposition to perceive one thing and not another

Front 81

Backmasking

Back 81

play song backwards to get a satonic message.

Front 82

Theory of constructive

Back 82

Top-down processing; People actively construct perceptions using information based on expectations

Front 83

Optical Illusion

Back 83

occurs when visual images prompt distortions of visual perception

Front 84

Figure ground Relationship

Back 84

the organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings.

Front 85

Gestalt

Back 85

An organized whole; our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes

Front 86

Law of Pragnanz

Back 86

states that the simplest organization, requiring the least cognitive effort, will emerge as the figure.

Front 87

Single cell recordings

Back 87

Technique used in research to observe changes in voltage or current in a neuron.

Front 88

prototype matching theory

Back 88

Categorizing items that most resemble the prototype or the exemplar of an object. If an object contains the most representative features of a prototype, it will be grouped within that.

Front 89

proximity

Back 89

Gestalt principle of organization holding that objects or events that are near to one another (in space or time) are perceived as belonging together as a unit.

Front 90

similarity

Back 90

Similar objects being categorized together.

Front 91

continuity

Back 91

the mind likes to see things as continuous rather than disassembled.

Front 92

closure

Back 92

objects grouped together are seen as a whole, even if they do not produce a whole.

Front 93

size constancy

Back 93

the tendency to perceive the veridical size of a familiar object despite differences in their distance.

Front 94

shape constancy

Back 94

Our ability to perceive familiar objects as unchanging in shape

Front 95

brightness constancy

Back 95

Our ability to perceive an object as having a constant brightness even when its illumination changes

Front 96

perceived motion

Back 96

a

Front 97

stroboscopic effect

Back 97

a

Front 98

phi phenomenon

Back 98

an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession.

Front 99

depth cues

Back 99

the ability to see objects in 3 dimensions although the images that strike the retina are 2 dimensional; allows us to judge distance

Front 100

visual cliff experiment

Back 100

a lab device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals

Front 101

monocular cues

Back 101

let us judge depth using information transmitted by only one eye

Front 102

binocular cues

Back 102

depth cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence, that depend on the use of 2 eyes.

Front 103

linear perspective

Back 103

the more 2 lines converge, the father away they are

Front 104

Relative size cue

Back 104

smaller is more distant

Front 105

Interposition cue

Back 105

an object that blocks another is closer than the blocked object

Front 106

Texture gradient

Back 106

when texture changes, coarse distinct objects are close and fine indistinct objects are distant

Front 107

Shadowing

Back 107

The entirety of the unconsciousness.

Front 108

Stereopsis

Back 108

Perception of death with two eyes seen.

Front 109

Binocular disparity

Back 109

Binocular disparity refers to the difference in image seen by the left and right eyes.

Front 110

Convergence

Back 110

Coordinating turning of both eyes in order to focus on a close object.

Front 111

Theories of Speech

Back 111

we perceive spoken words by identifying the vocal tract gestures with which they are pronounced rather than the sound patterns emitted.

Front 112

Phonemes

Back 112

smallest posited structural unit that distinguishes sounds

Front 113

Active theory

Back 113

a

Front 114

Muller-Lyer Illusion

Back 114

a