13823928537 | Sensation | The process of taking in information from the environment. | 0 | |
13823948359 | Perception | How we recognize, interpret, and organize our sensations. | 1 | |
13823959185 | Psychophysics | Branch of psychology that deals with the effects of physical stimuli on sensory response. | 2 | |
13823987570 | Absolute Threshold | The minimal amount of stimulation needed to detect a stimulus and cause the neuron for fire 50% of the time, at the absolute threshold, we cannot detect lower levels of stimuli, but we can detect higher. | 3 | |
13824035365 | Signal Detection Theory (SDT) | Theory of perception that takes into consideration that there are four possible outcomes on each trial in a detection experiment: The signal (stimulus) is either present or not, and the participants respond when they can detect a signal or when they cannot. Therefore the four possibilities are Hit, Miss, False Alarm, Correct Rejection. SDT takes into account response bias, moods, feelings, and decision-making strategies that affect our likelihood to make a given response. | 4 | |
13824073971 | Hit | In SDT when the signal was present, and the participant reported sensing it. | 5 | |
13824080113 | Miss | In SDT when the signal was present, and the participant did not sense it. | 6 | |
13824102324 | False Alarm | In SDT when the signal was absent, but the participant reported sensing it. | 7 | |
13824108995 | Correct Rejection | In SDT when the signal was absent and the participant did not report sensing it. | 8 | |
13824142026 | Discrimination Threshold | The ability to distinguish the difference between two stimuli. | 9 | |
13824195803 | Just Noticeable Difference (JND) / Difference Threshold | The minimum amount of distance between two stimuli that can be detected. | 10 | |
13824224678 | Ernst Weber | Created Webers law when he noticed that at low weights, say one ounce, it was easy to notice one-half ounce increases or decreases in weight; however at high weights, 32 ounces it was harder to judge the half ounce differences. | 11 | |
13824249982 | Webers Law | States that the greater the magnitude of the stimulus, the larger the differences must be to be noticed. | 12 | |
13824265759 | Subliminal Perception | Form of preconscious processing that occurs when we are presented with stimuli so rapidly that we are not consciously aware of them. When later presented with the same stimuli for a longer period of time, we recognize them more quickly than stimuli that we were not subliminally exposed to. | 13 | |
13824296348 | Priming | The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response | 14 | |
13824312158 | Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon | In which we try to recall something that we already know is available but is not easily available for conscious awareness. | 15 | |
13824325495 | Receptor Cells | Specialized cells in sensory organs which are designed to detect specific types of energy. For example, the visual system has specialized cells for detecting light waves. | 16 | |
13824350121 | Receptive Field | The area from which our receptor cells receive input. | 17 | |
13844510246 | Transduction | Receptors convert one input/stimulus in to neural impulses which are sent to the brain. | 18 | |
13844533125 | Contralateral Shift | Neural impulse goes to the thalamus, which sends it to the appropriate brain area. | 19 | |
13844546585 | Olfaction | Sense of smell | 20 | |
13844551458 | Sensory Coding | Process by which receptors convey a range of information to the brain. | 21 | |
13844559564 | Qualitative dimension of stimulus | Coded and expressed by which neurons are firing, for example neurons firing in the occipital lobe would indicate the sensory information is light . | 22 | |
13844578191 | Quantitative dimension of stimulus | Coded by the number of neurons firing, bright lights/loud noises involve the excitement of more neurons. | 23 | |
13844591726 | Single cell recording | Technique by which the firing rate and pattern of a single receptor cell can be measured in response to varying sensory input. | 24 | |
13844699909 | Visual Sensation | Occurs when the eye receives light input from the outside world. | 25 | |
13844704287 | Distal Stimulus | Object as it exists in the environment | 26 | |
13844710506 | Proximal Stimulus | The image of an object on a Retina | 27 | |
13844714275 | Cornea | Protective Layer on the outside of the eye | 28 | |
13844717173 | Lens | The curvature of the lens changes to accommodate for the distance | 29 | |
13844727679 | Retina | Serves as the screen onto which the proximal stimulus is projected | 30 | |
13844737298 | Rods | Sensitive in low light | 31 | |
13844741642 | Cones | Sensitive to bright light and color vision. | 32 | |
13844771971 | Bipolar Cells | Eye neurons that receive information from the retinal cells and distribute information to the ganglion cells. | 33 | |
13844773784 | Amacrine cells | Contact bipolar and ganglion cells. | 34 | |
13844778451 | Ganglion Cells | In the retina, the specialized neurons that connect to the bipolar cells; the bundled axons of the ganglion cells from the optic nerve. | 35 | |
13844781638 | Optic Nerves | The nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain. | 36 | |
13844781639 | Optic Chasm | The place nerves from both eyes join and cross over within the brain. | 37 | |
13844785887 | Serial Processing | Occurs when the brain computes information step-by-step in a methodical and linear matter. | 38 | |
13844789316 | Parallel processing | Occurs when the brain computes multiple pieces of information simultaneously. | 39 | |
13844797727 | Feature Detectors | Nerves cells in the brain that respond to specific features. | 40 | |
13844804724 | Convergence | A binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object. | 41 | |
13844809369 | Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory | According to this theory, the cones in the retina of the eyes are activated by light waves associated with blue, red, and green and we see colors by mixing the three. | 42 | |
13844818586 | Opponent-Process theory | Other theory on how we see light, Contends that the cells within the thalamus respond to opponent pairs of receptor sets, namely black/white, red/green, and blue/yellow. If one color of the set is activated, the other is essentially turned off. | 43 | |
13844836214 | Afterimage | A visual image that persists after a stimulus is removed. | 44 | |
13844839772 | Color Blindness | Occurs mostly in males and is usually genetic -Dichromats are people who cannon distinguish along the red/green or blue/yellow continuums -Monochromats see only in shades of black and white (very rare). | 45 | |
13844857632 | Auditory Input | In the form of sound waves, enters the ear by passing the outer ear, into the ear canal. | 46 | |
13844885096 | Tympanic Membrane | The eardrum. A structure that separates the outer ear from the middle ear and vibrates in response to sound waves. | 47 | |
13844887994 | Ossicles | The three tiny bones that comprise the middle ear | 48 | |
13844956393 | Stapes | "Stirrup"; inner of the 3 ossicles that vibrate the oval window. | 49 | |
13844961383 | Cochlea | A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses. | 50 | |
13844965381 | Auditory Cortex | The area of the temporal lobe responsible for processing sound information. | 51 | |
13844967505 | Vestibular sacs | Organs in the inner ear that connect the semicircular canals and the cochlea and contribute to the body's sense of balance. | 52 | |
13844996116 | Place theory | Asserts that sound waves generate activity in different places along the basilar membrane. | 53 | |
13845000783 | Frequency theory | States that we sense pitch because the rate of neural impulses is equal to the frequency of a particular sound. | 54 | |
13845008219 | Deafness | Can occur from damage to the ear structure or the neural pathway. | 55 | |
13845009869 | Conductive deafness | Refers to injury to outer or middle ear structures, such as the eardrum. | 56 | |
13845016523 | Sensorineural deafness | Refers to impairment of a structure or structures from the cochlea to the auditory cortex. | 57 | |
13854804746 | Gustation | Sense of taste | 58 | |
13855092060 | Cutaneous and Tactile receptors | Sense pressure, warmth, cold, and pain (fast-conducting myelinated neurons). | 59 | |
13855109559 | Cold Fibers | Fire in response to cold stimuli | 60 | |
13855113482 | Warm Fibers | Sensitive to warm stimuli | 61 | |
13855115955 | Vestibular sense | Involves sensation of balance, this sense is located in the semicircular canals of the inner ear. | 62 | |
13855126748 | Kinesthesis | Found in joins and ligaments, transmits information about the location and position of the limbs and body parts. | 63 | |
13855140281 | Sensory adaptation | Unconscious, temporary change in response to environmental stimuli. | 64 | |
13855154071 | Sensory Habituation | The process by which we become accustomed to a stimulus, and notice it less and less over time. | 65 | |
13855161993 | Sensory Dishabituation | Occurs after sensor habituation when a change in the stimulus causes us to notice it again. | 66 | |
13855182297 | Attention | Refers to the processing through the cognition of a select portion of the massive amount of information incoming from the senses and contained in the memory. Attention is what allows up to focus on one small aspect of our perceptual world. | 67 | |
13855200417 | Selectie Attention | When we try to attend to one thing while ignoring the other. | 68 | |
13855207400 | Cocktail party phenomenon | Refers to our ability to carry on and follow a single conversation in a room full of conversations, at the same time our attention can quickly be drawn to another conversation by key stimuli, such as someone saying our name. | 69 | |
13855226283 | Shadowing | A technique where a participant is asked to repeat a word or phrase immediately after its hearing. | 70 | |
13855229581 | Filter theories | Propose that stimuli must pass through some form of screen or filter to enter into attention. | 71 | |
13855249985 | Attentional resource theories | The theory that we have only a fixed amount of attention and this resource can be divided up as is required in a given situation | 72 | |
13855267433 | Divided attention | Trying to focus on more that one task at a time, is most difficult when attending to two or more stimuli that activate the same sense, as in watching TV and Reading | 73 | |
13855295203 | Perceptual processes | How our mind interprets environmental stimuli | 74 | |
13855302556 | Bottom-Up processing | Achieves recognition of an object by breaking it down into its component parts. Relies heavily on the sensory receptors and is the brain's analysis and acknowledgment of the raw data. | 75 | |
13855315358 | Top-down processing | When a brain labels a particular stimulus or experience | 76 | |
13855339792 | Visual perception | The ability to interpret the surrounding environment by processing information that is contained in visible light, because of the limited ability of the brain to process the information it takes shortcuts, allowing it to fall victim to illusions | 77 | |
13855355581 | Monocular depth cues | Depth clues we only need one eye to see | 78 | |
13855362470 | Relative size | Refers to the fact that images that are farther from us project a smaller image on the retina. | 79 | |
13855379619 | Texture gradient | Textures or patterns appear to grow denser as distance increases. | 80 | |
13855391622 | Interposition (Occlusion) | Occurs when a near object partially blocks the view of an object behind it. | 81 | |
13855407794 | Linear Perspective | Monocular cue for perceiving depth based on the perception that parallel lines seem to draw closer together as the lines recede into the distance. | 82 | |
13855421817 | Vanishing point | A vanishing point is a point in space, usually located on the horizon, where parallel edges of an object appear to converge. | 83 | |
13855425719 | Aerial perspective | Another perceptual cue based on the observation at atmospheric moisture and dust tends to obscure objects in the distance more than they do nearby objects. | 84 | |
13855439340 | Relative clarity | The perceptual clue that explains why less distinct fuzzy images appear to be more distant | 85 | |
13855446091 | Motion parallax | The difference in the apparent movement of objects at different distances | 86 | |
13855468790 | Binocular depth cues | Rely on both eyes viewing an image | 87 | |
13855476508 | Stereopsis | Refers to the three-dimensional image of the world resulting from binocular vision | 88 | |
13855484302 | Retinal Convergence | Depth cue that results from the fact that your eyes must turn inward slightly to focus on near objects, closer the object the more your eyes must turn inward. | 89 | |
13855501360 | Binocular disparity | Results from the fact that the closer and object is, the less similar the information at each eye will be | 90 | |
13855619985 | Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk: The Visual Cliff | Lifespan: 1910 - 2002 The visual cliff: Plexiglas and cloth apparatus to investigate depth perception in infants (allowed them to experimentally adjust the optical and tactical stimuli associated with a simulated cliff while protecting the subjects from injury) - Gibson and Walk hypothesized that depth perception is inherent as opposed to a learned process - Concluded that when healthy infants are able to crawl, they are able to perceive depth (they didn't crawl over the Plexiglas because they were able to perceive the cliff-likeness of it) | 91 | |
13855649980 | Gestalt Approach | Based on the Top-Down theory, view holds that most perceptual stimuli can be broken down into figure-ground relationships. Figures are the things that stand out, whereas the ground is the field against which the figures stand out. | 92 | |
13855700035 | Proximity | The tendency to see objects that are near to each other as forming groups | ![]() | 93 |
13855705167 | Similarity | The tendency to prefer to group like objects together | ![]() | 94 |
13855715089 | Symmetry | The tendency to perceive preferentially forms that makeup mirror images | 95 | |
13855749376 | Continiuty | The tendency to perceive preferentially fluid of continuous forms, rather than jagged or irregular ones | 96 | |
13855762340 | Closure | The tendency to see closed objects rather than those that are not complete | ![]() | 97 |
13855785257 | Law of Prägnanz | The minimum tendency, we tend to see objects in their simplest forms. | 98 | |
13855803352 | Feature detector approach | The theory that organisms respond to specific aspects of a particular stimulus. | 99 | |
13855826349 | Constancy | Means that we know that a stimulus remains the same size, shape, brightness, weight, and/or volume, even though it does not appear to. | 100 | |
13855843547 | Motion detection | One of the most complex abilities we have, we perceive motion through 2 processes. One records the changing position of the object as it moves and the other tracks how we move our head to follow the stimuli. | 101 | |
13855866065 | Apparent motion | Examples of include blinking lights on a roadside arrow, which give the illusion of movement | 102 | |
13855880086 | Phi Phenomenon | An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession | 103 | |
13855884320 | Stroboscopic effect | Where still pictures move at a fast enough pace to imply movement | 104 | |
13855899601 | Autokinetic effect | Still light that appears to twinkle in darkness. | 105 |
AP Psychology Sensation and Perception Flashcards
Primary tabs
Need Help?
We hope your visit has been a productive one. If you're having any problems, or would like to give some feedback, we'd love to hear from you.
For general help, questions, and suggestions, try our dedicated support forums.
If you need to contact the Course-Notes.Org web experience team, please use our contact form.
Need Notes?
While we strive to provide the most comprehensive notes for as many high school textbooks as possible, there are certainly going to be some that we miss. Drop us a note and let us know which textbooks you need. Be sure to include which edition of the textbook you are using! If we see enough demand, we'll do whatever we can to get those notes up on the site for you!