AP Psychology: Sensation and Perception Flashcards
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| 8255554730 | sensation | the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment | 0 | |
| 8255554731 | perception | the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events | 1 | |
| 8255554732 | bottom up processing | analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information | 2 | |
| 8255554733 | top down processing | information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations | 3 | |
| 8255554734 | psychophysics | the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them it can concern how sensitive we are to changing stimulation | 4 | |
| 8255554735 | absolute threshold | the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time; illustrated by our awareness of faint stimuli such as seeing a candle flame atop another mountain 30 miles away or smelling a single drop of perfume in a three-room apartment | 5 | |
| 8255554736 | 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 level of fatigue | 6 | |
| 8255554737 | subliminal | below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness | 7 | |
| 8255554738 | priming | the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response | 8 | |
| 8255554739 | difference threshold | the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time; we experience this as a *just noticeable difference* | 9 | |
| 8255554740 | Weber's law | the principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount) For weight, that change has been noticed at 2%. | 10 | |
| 8255554741 | sensory adaptation | diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation Ex. Enter an unfamiliar room and it smells weird. Spend five minutes in there and you won't be able to smell anything weird. Ex. Enter a cold pool. Five minutes later you're "used to" the water. | 11 | |
| 8255554742 | 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 | 12 | |
| 8255554743 | wavelength | the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next; electromagnetic wavelengths vary from the short blips of cosmic rays to the long pulses of radio transmission | 13 | |
| 8255554744 | hue | the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, etc. | 14 | |
| 8255554745 | 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 | 15 | |
| 8255554746 | pupil | the adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters |  | 16 |
| 8255554747 | iris | a ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening |  | 17 |
| 8255554748 | lens | the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina |  | 18 |
| 8255554749 | accommodation | the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina | 19 | |
| 8255554750 | 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 |  | 20 |
| 8255554751 | acuity | the sharpness of vision | 21 | |
| 8255554752 | nearsightedness | a condition in which nearby objects are seen more clearly than distant objects because distant objects focus in front of the retina | 22 | |
| 8255554753 | farsightedness | a condition in which faraway objects are seen more clearly than near objects because the image of near objects is focused behind the retina | 23 | |
| 8255554754 | rods | retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond -helps with seeing in the dark -120 million of them in the eye -location in retina: periphery -not color sensitive -not detail sensitive | 24 | |
| 8255554755 | cones | retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions; the cones detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations -fovea contains only these -helps with seeing in light -6 million of them in the eye -location in retina: center -color sensitive -detail sensitive | 25 | |
| 8255554756 | optic nerve | the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain | 26 | |
| 8255554757 | blind spot | the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye. No receptor cells are located there | 27 | |
| 8255554758 | fovea | the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster |  | 28 |
| 8255554759 | feature detectors | nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement | 29 | |
| 8255554760 | parallel processing | the processing of several 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 | 30 | |
| 8255554761 | 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 when stimulated in combination can produce the perception of any color | 31 | |
| 8255554762 | opponent process theory | the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision; for example, some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red (and vice versa) | 32 | |
| 8255554763 | color constancy | perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object | 33 | |
| 8255554764 | audition | the sense or act of hearing | 34 | |
| 8255554765 | frequency | the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second) | 35 | |
| 8255554766 | pitch | a tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency | 36 | |
| 8255554767 | decibel | the measuring unit for sound energy | 37 | |
| 8255554768 | outer ear | the visible part of the ear that channels the sound waves through the auditory canal to the eardrum |  | 38 |
| 8255554769 | eardrum | a tight membrane in the inner ear that vibrates with the sound waves |  | 39 |
| 8255554770 | middle ear | the chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window |  | 40 |
| 8255554771 | cochlea | a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses |  | 41 |
| 8255554772 | inner ear | the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs |  | 42 |
| 8255554773 | basilar membrane | a structure separating two liquid-filled tubes that runs the length of the cochlea in the inner ear and holds the auditory receptors, called hair cells | 43 | |
| 8255554774 | hair cells | the hairlike sensory receptors for sound, which are embedded in the basilar membrane of the cochlea damage to these accounts for most hearing loss | 44 | |
| 8255554775 | place theory | in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated presumes that we hear different pitches because different sound waves trigger activity at different places along the cochlea's basilar membrane | 45 | |
| 8255554776 | 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 | 46 | |
| 8255554778 | conduction hearing loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea If the eardrum is punctured of if the tiny bones of the middle ear lose their ability to vibrate, the ear's ability to conduct vibrations diminishes. | 47 | |
| 8255554779 | sensorineural hearing loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness causes include: disease, heredity, aging, prolonged exposure, to ear-splitting noise or music | 48 | |
| 8255554780 | cochlear implant | a device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea | 49 | |
| 8255554781 | gate control theory | the theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain; the gate is opened by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve gibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain | 50 | |
| 8255554782 | sensory interaction | the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste | 51 | |
| 8255554783 | kinesthesis | the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts | 52 | |
| 8255554784 | vestibular sense | the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance | 53 | |
| 8255554785 | selective attention | the ability to attend to one stimuli at a time | 54 | |
| 8255554786 | cocktail party effect | the ability to pick a stimuli out from other constant "noise" bombarding your sense. | 55 | |
| 8255554787 | inattentional blindness | not noticing something that you are not paying active attention to | 56 | |
| 8255554790 | Gestalt | tendency to organize pieces of information into a meaningful whole | 57 | |
| 8255554791 | figure ground |  | 58 | |
| 8255554793 | depth perception | our ability to use binocular and monocular cues to establish the position of things in our environment | 59 | |
| 8255554794 | visual cliff | experiment showing that infants are not able to perceive depth | 60 | |
| 8255554795 | binocular cues | using two eyes to establish depth | 61 | |
| 8255554796 | retinal disparity | (finger sausage) provides one important binocular cue to the relative distance of different object. | 62 | |
| 8255554798 | monocular cues | (using one eye) to establish depth and distance of objects in our environment | 63 | |
| 8255554799 | Phi phenomenon | an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession | 64 | |
| 8255554800 | perceptual constancy | our ability to understand that objects do not change shape even though they leave our field of vision. | 65 | |
| 8255554801 | shape constancy | we understand that doors remain the same shape even though we are seeing them from different angles. |  | 66 |
| 8255554805 | perceptual adaptation | the ability for our brain to adapt to changing sensory information. | 67 | |
| 8255554806 | perceptual set | mental predisposition | 68 |
