Advanced Placement Psychology
Enterprise High School, Redding, CA
All terms from Myers Psychology for AP (BFW Worth, 2011)
Terms : Hide Images
| 7313793620 | sensation | the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment. |  | 0 |
| 7313793621 | perception | the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events. |  | 1 |
| 7313793622 | bottom-up processing | analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information. |  | 2 |
| 7313793623 | top-down processing | information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations. | | 3 |
| 7313793624 | selective attention | the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. |  | 4 |
| 7313793625 | inattentional blindness | failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere. |  | 5 |
| 7313793626 | change blindness | failing to notice changes in the environment. |  | 6 |
| 7313793627 | psychophysics | the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them. |  | 7 |
| 7313793628 | absolute threshold | the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time. |  | 8 |
| 7313793629 | signal detection theory | a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness. |  | 9 |
| 7313793632 | difference threshold | the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. Also called the just noticeable difference (jnd). | | 10 |
| 7313793633 | Weber's law | the principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant percentage (rather than a constant amount). |  | 11 |
| 7313793634 | sensory adaptation | diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation. |  | 12 |
| 7313793635 | 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. |  | 13 |
| 7313793643 | accomodation | the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina. |  | 14 |
| 7313793650 | parallel processing | the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision. Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving. |  | 15 |
| 7313793651 | Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three-color) theory | the theory that the retina contains three different color receptors—one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue—which, when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color. |  | 16 |
| 7313793659 | place theory | in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated. |  | 17 |
| 7313793660 | 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 sense its pitch. |  | 18 |
| 7313793664 | kinesthesis | the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts. |  | 19 |
| 7313793665 | vestibular sense | the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance. |  | 20 |
| 7313793667 | sensory interaction | the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste. |  | 21 |
| 7313793668 | gestalt | an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes |  | 22 |
| 7313793669 | figure-ground | the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground). |  | 23 |
| 7313793671 | 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. |  | 24 |
| 7313793672 | visual cliff | a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals. |  | 25 |
| 7313793673 | binocular cues | depth cues, such as retinal disparity, that depend on the use of two eyes. |  | 26 |
| 7313793674 | retinal disparity | a binocular cue for perceiving depth by comparing images from the retinas in the two eyes, the brain computes distance—the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object. |  | 27 |
| 7313793675 | monocular cues | depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone. |  | 28 |
| 7313793676 | phi phenomenon | an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession. |  | 29 |
| 7313793677 | perceptual constancy | perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent shapes, size, lightness, and color) even as illumination and retinal images change. |  | 30 |
| 7313793678 | color constancy | perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object. |  | 31 |
| 7313793679 | perceptual adaptation | in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field. |  | 32 |
| 7313793680 | perceptual set | a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another. |  | 33 |
| 7313793681 | extrasensory perception (ESP) | the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. |  | 34 |
| 7313793682 | parapsychology | the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis. |  | 35 |
