Chapter 4: Sensation and Perception (66 terms)
pages 118-171;
Transcribed by alexwyllie
Terms : Hide Images
| 1006676725 | Sensation | The stimulation of sense organs. | 0 | |
| 1006676726 | Perception | The selection, organization, and interpretation of sensory input. | 1 | |
| 1006676727 | Psychophysics | The study of how physical stimuli are translated into psychological experience. | 2 | |
| 1006676728 | Absolute threshold | The minimum stimulus intensity that an organism can detect. | 3 | |
| 1006676729 | Just noticeable difference (JND) | The smallest difference in stimulus intensity that a specific sense can detect. | 4 | |
| 1006676730 | Weber's law | The size of a just noticeable difference is a constant proportion of the size of the initial stimulus. | 5 | |
| 1006676731 | Signal detection theory | The detection of stimuli involves decision processes as well as sensory processes, which are both influenced by a variety of factors besides stimulus intensity. | 6 | |
| 1006676732 | Subliminal perception | The registration of sensory input without conscious awareness. | 7 | |
| 1006676733 | Sensory adaptation | A gradual decline in sensitivity to prolonged stimulation. | 8 | |
| 1006676734 | Lens | The transparent eye structure that focuses the light rays falling on the retina. | 9 | |
| 1006676735 | Nearsightedness | Close objects are seen clearly but distant objects appear blurry. | 10 | |
| 1006676736 | Farsightedness | Distant objects are seen clearly but close objects appear blurry. | 11 | |
| 1006676737 | Pupil | The opening in the center of the iris that permits light to pass into the rear chamber of the eye. | 12 | |
| 1006676738 | Retina | The neural tissue lining the inside back surface of the eye; it absorbs light, processes images, and sends visual information to the brain. | 13 | |
| 1006676739 | Optic disk | A hole in the retina where the optic nerve fibers exit the eye. | 14 | |
| 1006676740 | Cones | Specialized visual receptors that play a key role in daylight vision and color vision. | 15 | |
| 1006676741 | Fovea | A tiny spot in the center of the retina that contains only cones; visual acuity is greatest at this spot. | 16 | |
| 1006676742 | Rods | Specialized visual receptors that play a key role in night vision and peripheral vision. | 17 | |
| 1006676743 | Dark adaption | The process in which the eyes become more sensitive to light in low illumination. | 18 | |
| 1006676744 | Light adaption | The process whereby the eyes become less sensitive to light in high illumination. | 19 | |
| 1006676745 | Receptive field of a visual cell | The retinal area that, when stimulated, affects the firing of that cell. | 20 | |
| 1006676746 | Lateral antagonism | When neural activity in a cell opposes activity in surrounding cells. | 21 | |
| 1006676747 | Optic chiasm | The point at which the optic nerves from the inside half of the eye cross over and then project to the opposite half of the brain. | 22 | |
| 1006676748 | Parallel processing | Simultaneously extracting different kinds of information from the same input. | 23 | |
| 1006676749 | Feature detectors | Neurons that respond selectively to very specific features of more complex stimuli. | 24 | |
| 1006676750 | Subtractive color mixing | Removing some wavelengths of light, leaving less light than was originally there. | 25 | |
| 1006676751 | Additive color mixing | Superimposing lights, putting more light in the mixture than exists in any one light by itself. | 26 | |
| 1006676752 | Trichromatic theory | The human eye has three types of receptors with differing sensitivities to different light wavelengths. | 27 | |
| 1006676753 | Color blindness | A variety of deficiencies in the ability to distinguish among colors. | 28 | |
| 1006676754 | Complementary colors | Pairs of colors that produce gray tones when mixed together. | 29 | |
| 1006676755 | Afterimage | A visual image that persists after a stimulus is removed. | 30 | |
| 1006676756 | Opponent process theory | Color perception depends on receptors that make antagonistic responses to three pairs of colors. | 31 | |
| 1006676757 | Reversible figure | A drawing that is comparable with two interpretations that can shift back and forth. | 32 | |
| 1006676758 | Perceptual set | A readiness to perceive a stimulus in a particular way. | 33 | |
| 1006676759 | Inattentional blindness | The failure to see visible objects or events because one's attention is focused elsewhere. | 34 | |
| 1006676760 | Feature analysis | The process of detecting specific elements in visual input and assembling them into a more complex form. | 35 | |
| 1006676761 | Bottom-up processing | A progression from individual elements to the whole. | 36 | |
| 1006676762 | Top-down processing | A progression from the whole to the elements. | 37 | |
| 1006676763 | Subjective contours | The perception of contours where none actually exist. | 38 | |
| 1006676764 | Phi phenomenon | The illusion of movement created by presenting visual stimuli in rapid succession. | 39 | |
| 1006676765 | Distal stimuli | Stimuli that lie in the distance (that is, in the world outside the body). | 40 | |
| 1006676766 | Proximal stimuli | The stimulus energies that impinge directly on sensory receptors. | 41 | |
| 1006676767 | Perceptual hypothesis | An inference about which distal stimuli could be responsible for the proximal stimuli sensed. | 42 | |
| 1006676768 | Depth perception | Interpretation of visual cues that indicate how near or far away objects are. | 43 | |
| 1006676769 | Binocular depth cues | Clues about distance based on the differing views of the two eyes. | 44 | |
| 1006676770 | Retinal Disparity | Objects within 25 feet project images to slightly different locations on the right and left retinas, so each eye sees a slightly different view of the object. | 45 | |
| 1006676771 | Convergence | Sensing the eyes converging toward each other as they focus on closer objects. | 46 | |
| 1006676772 | Monocular depth cues | Clues about distance based on the image in either eye alone. | 47 | |
| 1006676773 | Motion parallax | Images of objects at different distances moving across the retina at different rates. | 48 | |
| 1006676774 | Pictorial depth cues | Clues about distance that can be given in a flat picture. | 49 | |
| 1006676775 | Perceptual constancy | A tendency to experience a stable perception in the face of continually changing sensory input. | 50 | |
| 1006676776 | Visual illusion | An apparently inexplicable discrepancy between the appearance of a visual stimulus and its physical reality. | 51 | |
| 1006676777 | Impossible figures | Objects that can be represented in two-dimensional pictures but cannot exist in three-dimensional space. | 52 | |
| 1006676778 | Cochlea | A fluid-filled, coiled tunnel that contains the receptors for hearing. | 53 | |
| 1006676779 | Basilar membrane | Runs the entire length of the spiraled cochlea and holds the auditory receptors. | 54 | |
| 1006676780 | Place theory | Perception of pitch corresponds to the vibration of different potions, or places, along the basilar membrane. | 55 | |
| 1006676781 | Frequency theory | The perception of pitch corresponds to the rate, or frequency, at which the entire basilar membrane vibrates. | 56 | |
| 1006676782 | Volley principle | Groups of auditory nerve fibers fire neural impulses in rapid succession, creating volleys of impulses. | 57 | |
| 1006676783 | Auditory localization | Locating the source of a sound in space. | 58 | |
| 1006676784 | Gustatory system | The sensory system for taste. | 59 | |
| 1006676785 | Olfactory system | The sensory system for smell. | 60 | |
| 1006676786 | Gate-control theory | Incoming pain sensations must pass through a gate in the spinal cord that can be closed, thus blocking ascending pain signals. | 61 | |
| 1006676787 | Kinesthetic system | Monitors the position of the various parts of the body. | 62 | |
| 1006676788 | Vestibular system | Responds to gravity and keeps you informed of your body's location in space. | 63 | |
| 1006676789 | Door-in-the-face technique | Making a large request that is likely to be turned down as a way to increase the chances that people will agree to a smaller request later. | 64 | |
| 1006676790 | Comparitors | People, objects, events, and other standards used as a baseline for comparison in making judgements. | 65 |
