Ap Psychology

Front 1

Absolute Threshold

Back 1

the lowest level of a stimulus light,
sound, touch, etc.that an organism could detect.

Front 2

Detection theory or signal detection theory

Back 2

a means to
quantify the ability to discern between information-bearing patterns
and random patterns that distract from the information.

Front 3

Just-Noticeable Difference (JND)

Back 3

the smallest
detectable difference between a starting and secondary level of a
particular sensory stimulus. It is also known as the difference
limen, differential threshold, or least perceptible difference.

Front 4

Weber's law, quantifying the perception of change in a given
stimulus.

Back 4

The law states that the change in a stimulus that will be
just noticeable is a constant ratio of the original stimulus.

Front 5

Sensory adaptation

Back 5

the diminished sensitivity to a
stimulus as a consequence of constant exposure to that stimulus.
Brain cells begin to fire when they pick up on a new stimulus in
your environment as signaled by your sensory organs.

Front 6

Retinal ganglion cells

Back 6

vary in size,
connections, & response to visual stimulation but all share
a long axon that extends into the
brain. These axons form the optic nerve, chiasm, &
tract

Front 7

Accommodation

Back 7

process when new information or
experiences cause you to modify your existing schemas. Rather
than make the new info fit into an existing schema, you
change the schema in order to 'accommodate' the new info.

Front 8

Transduction

Back 8

the process by which DNA is transferred from one bacterium to another by a virus. It also refers to the process whereby foreign DNA is introduced into another cell via a viral vector.

Front 9

Retina

Back 9

layer at the back of the eyeball containing cells that
are sensitive to light and that trigger nerve impulses that pass
via the optic nerve to the brain, where a visual image is
formed.

Front 10

rods and cones

Back 10

light-sensitive cells of the retina. The rods,
under the visual purple pigment epithelium, are mainly located
around the periphery of the retina. The cones receive color stimuli.

Front 11

optic nerve

Back 11

transmit impulses to the brain from the retina at the back
of the eye.

Front 12

Feature detection

Back 12

process by which specialized nerve cells in
the brain respond to specific features of a visual stimulus, such as
lines, edges, angle, or movemente

Front 13

Parallel processing

Back 13

the ability of the brain to simultaneously process
incoming stimuli of differing quality. This becomes most important in
vision, as the brain divides what it sees into four components: color,
motion, shape, and depth

Front 14

The Young–Helmholtz theory (based on the work of Thomas
Young and Hermann von Helmholtz in the 19th century)

Back 14

theory of trichromatic color vision – the manner in which the
photoreceptor cells in the eyes of humans and other primates work
to enable color vision.

Front 15

Opponent-process theory

Back 15

psychological and neurological
model that accounts for a wide range of behaviors, including color
vision.

Front 16

Place theory

Back 16

theory of hearing which states that our
perception of sound depends on where each component frequency
produces vibrations along the basilar membrane

Front 17

frequency theory

Back 17

theory that sound waves of different frequencies make the
whole basilar membrane vibrate at different rates and therefore
cause neural impulses to be sent at different rates.

Front 18

inner ear

Back 18

the semicircular canals and cochlea, which form
the organs of balance and hearing and are embedded in the
temporal bone.

Front 19

membrane

Back 19

pliable sheetlike structure acting as a boundary,
lining, or partition in an organism.

Front 20

gate control theory

Back 20

suggests that the spinal cord contains a
neurological "gate" that either blocks pain signals or allows them to
continue on to the brain.

Front 21

kinesthesis/

Kinesthesia

Back 21

the sensation of movement or strain in
muscles, tendons, and joints; muscle sense.

Front 22

vestibular sense (The vestibular system)

Back 22

contributes to
balance in most mammals and to the sense of spatial orientation,
is the sensory system that provides the leading contribution about
movement and sense of balance.

Front 23

olfactory bulb

Back 23

neural structure of the vertebrate
forebrain involved in olfaction, or the sense of smell

Front 24

Sound localization

Back 24

refers to a listener's ability to identify the
location or origin of a detected sound in direction and distance.