Terms : Hide Images
| 251083432 | Sensation | The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment. | 0 | |
| 251083433 | Perception* | The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, which enables us to recognize meaningful objects and events. | 1 | |
| 251083434 | Bottom-Up Processing | Analysis that begins with the sense receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information. | 2 | |
| 251083435 | Top-Down Processing | Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations. | 3 | |
| 251083436 | Selective Attention | the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus | 4 | |
| 251083437 | Inattentional Blindness | failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere (e.g. looking for glasses when they are on your head) | 5 | |
| 251083438 | Change Blindness | failing to notice changes in the environment | 6 | |
| 251083439 | Psychophysics | the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them | 7 | |
| 251083440 | Absolute Threshold* | the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time | 8 | |
| 251083441 | Signal Detection Theory | predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise) Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectation, motivation, and level of fatigue | 9 | |
| 251083442 | Subliminal | below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness | 10 | |
| 251083443 | Priming | the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response | 11 | |
| 251083444 | Difference Threshold* | the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference. (Also called the just noticeable difference or JND.) | 12 | |
| 251083445 | Weber's Law | to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount) | 13 | |
| 251083446 | Sensory Adaptation* | diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation | 14 | |
| 251083447 | Transduction* | conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brains can interpret. | 15 | |
| 251083448 | Wavelength | the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next, in the electromagnetic spectrum | 16 | |
| 251083449 | Hue | the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light | 17 | |
| 251083450 | Intensity | the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude (height) | 18 | |
| 251083451 | Pupil | the adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters | 19 | |
| 251083452 | Lens | a transparent optical device used to converge or diverge transmitted light and to form images | 20 | |
| 251083453 | Retina* | the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information | 21 | |
| 251083454 | Accommodation | the process where the lens focuses the rays by changing its curvature. | 22 | |
| 251083455 | Rods | retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond. | 23 | |
| 251083456 | Cones | retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. Detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations. | 24 | |
| 251083457 | Optic Nerve* | the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain. | 25 | |
| 251083458 | Blind Spot | the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a spot where there are no receptor cells located. | 26 | |
| 251083459 | Fovea | the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster | 27 | |
| 251083460 | Feature Detectors | nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement. | 28 | |
| 251083461 | Parallel Processing | the processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision | 29 | |
| 251083462 | Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory | The theory that the retina contains three different color receptors—one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue—which combined can produce the perception of any color. | 30 | |
| 251083463 | Opponent-Process Theory* | the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision. Explained by the concept of afterimages | 31 | |
| 251083464 | Audition | the sense or act of hearing. | 32 | |
| 251083465 | Frequency | the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second) | 33 | |
| 251083466 | Pitch | a tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency. | 34 | |
| 251083467 | Middle Ear | transmits the eardrum's vibrations through a piston made of three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) to the cochlea | 35 | |
| 251083468 | Cochlea* | a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses | 36 | |
| 251083469 | Inner Ear* | the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs | 37 | |
| 251083470 | Place Theory | in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated. Best explains how we sense high pitches. | 38 | |
| 251083471 | Frequency Theory | in hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to its sense of pitch. Best explains how we sense low pitches. | 39 | |
| 251083472 | Conduction Hearing Loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea | 40 | |
| 251083473 | Sensorineural Hearing Loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness | 41 | |
| 251083474 | Cochlear Implant | a device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea | 42 | |
| 251083475 | Kinesthesis | the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts | 43 | |
| 251083476 | Vestibular Sense | the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance | 44 | |
| 251083477 | Gate-Control Theory* | Melzack and Wall's theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks or allows pain signals to pass on to the brain. | 45 | |
| 251083478 | Sensory Interaction | the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste | 46 | |
| 251083479 | Gestalt* | an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes | 47 | |
| 251083480 | Figure-Ground | the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground). | 48 | |
| 251083481 | Grouping | the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups (proximity, similarity, continuity, connectedness, closure) | 49 | |
| 251083482 | Depth Perception | the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance | 50 | |
| 251083483 | Visual Cliff | a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals | 51 | |
| 251083484 | Binocular Cues* | depth cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence, that depend on the use of two eyes | 52 | |
| 251083485 | Retinal Disparity | a binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing images from the two eyeballs, the brain computes distance - the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the close the object | 53 | |
| 251083486 | Monocular Cues | depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone | 54 | |
| 251083487 | Phi Phenomenon | an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession | 55 | |
| 251083488 | Perceptual Constancy | perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change | 56 | |
| 251083489 | Color Constancy | perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object | 57 | |
| 251083490 | Perceptual Adaptation* | in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field | 58 | |
| 251083491 | Perceptual Set | a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another | 59 | |
| 251083492 | Extrasensory Perception (ESP) | the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input. Said to include telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. | 60 | |
| 251083493 | Parapsychology | the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis | 61 |
