AP Psychology Unit 4 Flashcards
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| 8024089527 | sensation | our senses detect info from the world that goes to our brain, it is our window to the world, DETECTION | 0 | |
| 8024108293 | perception | allows us to organize and interpret sensory information allowing us to recognize meaningful events and objects, it is interpreting what comes in our window of sensation, INTERPRETATION | 1 | |
| 8024130853 | bottom-up processing | analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's higher levels of processing; the integration of sensory information | 2 | |
| 8024170576 | top-down processing | information processing guided by higher level mental processes, like when we construct perceptions based on our experience and expectations. It is the effect of prior experience and current expectations on perception. | 3 | |
| 8024179713 | selective attention | the ability to focus conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. | 4 | |
| 8024224580 | cocktail party effect | your ability to listen to one voice among many, demonstrates your ability for selective attention | 5 | |
| 8024252355 | inattentional blindness | failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere, ex: texting and driving and you fail to see the person walk out in front of you | 6 | |
| 8024263087 | change blindness | failing to notice changes in the environment, form of inattentional blindness | 7 | |
| 8024302613 | 3 steps all senses follow | 1. receive sensory info 2. transform stimulation into neural impulses 3. deliver neural into to brain | 8 | |
| 8024284237 | transduction | The sensory process that converts energy, such as light or sound waves, into the form of neural messages. Information goes from the senses to the thalamus, then to the various areas in the brain. Ex: Light energy to vision, Chemical energy to smell and taste, Sound waves to sound. | 9 | |
| 8024351115 | Gustav Fechner | studied our awareness of faint stimuli (like a bee wing on your cheek or a candle flame 30 miles away) and called them our absolute threshold. | 10 | |
| 8024365695 | *absolute threshold | The minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time, Ex: Hearing test where low level intensity sounds are not detected | 11 | |
| 8024420581 | signal detection theory | theory pedicting how we detect a weak stimulus among other stimuli. Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that the person's ability to detect a signal depends on their experience, motivation, alertness, and fatigue level. | 12 | |
| 8024458583 | subliminal messages | stimuli you can't detect because it is below your absolute threshold for conscious awareness. Can't control our behavior, can only subtly influence people | 13 | |
| 8024471213 | priming | The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response. Ex: flash good images before slides of people and participants will say the people look nicer than if the participant was flashed bad images. | 14 | |
| 8024503068 | *Difference threshold (just noticeable difference) | The minimum difference that a person can detect between two stimuli 50% of the time, Increases as stimulus size increases | 15 | |
| 8024520093 | Weber's Law | Ernst Weber noted that for people to really perceive a difference, the stimuli must differ by a constant "proportion" not a constant "amount". Ex: when buying a $1000 computer, a $200 add on may seem like too much, but when buying a $300,000 house, a $200 feature may seem like nothing; amount stays the same, but the proportion changes. | 16 | |
| 8024586579 | sensory adaption | the diminishing sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus, Ex: you don't feel your shoes on all day until you think about it | 17 | |
| 8024608808 | perceptual set | a mental predisposition that influences our interpretation of a stimulus. Ex: newspaper claims a photo shows the Loch Ness monster, so that is what its readers see, kids prefer the fries in a McDonalds bag over the same fries in a regular bag. | 18 | |
| 8024663473 | schemas | concepts formed through experiences that organize and allow us to interpret unfamiliar information. Plays a role in memories, thoughts, language, prejudice, and stereotyping. | 19 | |
| 8024704538 | context effects | the context a stimuli is in can change the way we perceive it, Ex: horizon moon appears to shrink in size if it is viewed through a narrow tube that eliminates the perception of distance cues. | 20 | |
| 8024719523 | parapsychology | the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis. | 21 | |
| 8024726664 | extrasensory perception (ESP) | claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input, includes: telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition | 22 | |
| 8024750764 | psychokinesis | ability to move things with your mind | 23 | |
| 8024756086 | telepathy | mind-to-mind communication, extrasensory transmission of thoughts from one mind to another. | 24 | |
| 8024758923 | clairvoyance | extrasensory perception of events that occur at places remote to the perceiver | 25 | |
| 8024794425 | critics of ESP | argue that there is no proof because researchers have been unable to replicate ESP phenomena under controlled conditions | 26 | |
| 8024803369 | *wavelength | The distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next. Distance determines the HUE of light waves or the pitch of sound waves, short distance= blue colors and high pitch sounds, long distance= red colors, and low pitch sounds. | 27 | |
| 8024841886 | hue | color of light we perceive, determined by the wavelength of light | 28 | |
| 8024854741 | *amplitude | a wave's height from peak to trough, determines the loudness of a sound. | 29 | |
| 8024900145 | intensity | the amount of energy in a light wave, we perceive this as BRIGHTNESS, it is determined by the wave's amplitude. | 30 | |
| 8024939466 | frequency | the number of complete wavelengths that can pass through a point at a given time, determines pitch of a sound | 31 | |
| 8024962239 | large amplitude | bright colors, loud sounds | 32 | |
| 8024965887 | small amplitude | dull colors, quiet sounds | 33 | |
| 8024972486 | short wavelength | high frequency, blue colors, high-pitch sounds | 34 | |
| 8024976558 | long wavelength | low frequency, red colors, low-pitch sounds | 35 | |
| 8024995666 | cornea | protects the eye, bends light to provide focus, |  | 36 |
| 8025007252 | pupil | Adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters, size depends on iris |  | 37 |
| 8025024315 | iris | a ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil, controls the size of the pupil by dilating or constricting in response to light intensity or inner emotions |  | 38 |
| 8025046956 | lens | transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina |  | 39 |
| 8025064394 | retina | light-sensitive inner surface of the eye that contains receptor rods and cones and layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual info |  | 40 |
| 8025093452 | accommodation | the process that the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina | 41 | |
| 8025116494 | Photoreceptors | (rods and cones), Light-sensitive cells (neurons) in the retina that convert light energy into neural energy. | 42 | |
| 8025129285 | rods | Photoreceptors in the retina that are especially sensitive to dim light, but not sensitive to color or detail. (125 million per eye) | 43 | |
| 8025174262 | cones | Photoreceptors in the retina that are especially sensitive to colors and detail, but not sensitive to dim light. (7 million/eye), cones are the reason we perceive colors, no cones in our peripheral vision so we don't see color with our peripheral vison | 44 | |
| 8025215885 | bipolar cells | transmit signals from the photoreceptors (rods and cones) to the ganglion cells | 45 | |
| 8025236205 | ganglion cells | receives signals from the bipolar cells, the axons of ganglion cells converge to form the optic nerve. | 46 | |
| 8025263564 | optic nerve | formed by the axons of ganglion cells, it is the bundle of neurons that carries the visual information from the retina to the brain. This is where the stimulus, once changed into a neural impulse, gets passed onto the brain. |  | 47 |
| 8025284326 | blind spot | The point where the optic nerve exits the eye and where there are no photoreceptors. Any stimulus that falls on this area cannot be seen. |  | 48 |
| 8025236206 | fovea | the central focal point of the retina that has the highest concentration of rods and cones, it the area of sharpest vision. | 49 | |
| 8025340748 | eye |  | 50 | |
| 8025350411 | feature detectors | nerve cells in the brain (occipital lobe's Visual Cortex) that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement. | 51 | |
| 8025364870 | parallel processing | the simultaneous processing of several aspects of a problem, visual cortex breaks images into their motion, form, depth, and color then integrates them into one image | 52 | |
| 8025419938 | Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three-color) theory | retina contains 3 different color receptors sensitive to red, green, or blue. These 3 receptors can combine to produce the perception of any color, most "colorblind" people simply lack cone receptor cells for one or more of these primary colors. |  | 53 |
| 8025463432 | monochromats | vision is one color (total color blindness) | 54 | |
| 8025463433 | dichromats | vision is two color instead of 3, only 2 of the three color receptors work | 55 | |
| 8025516356 | afterimage | when you stare at a red object, light-sensitive cells at the back of your eyes become less responsive to red light so when you look away you see red's opponent color, green. | 56 | |
| 8025508601 | opponent colors | red and green, yellow and blue, black and white | 57 | |
| 8029895174 | opponent-process theory | theory that opposing systems (red-green, yellow-blue, and white-black) enable color perception, there are some color combinations that we never see, such as reddish-green or yellowish-blue. Some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red, this is because red and green messages cannot both travel down their shared "red-green" channel. | 58 | |
| 8029932902 | color processing's two stages | retina's red, green, and blue cones respond to varying stimuli, then their signals are processed by the nervous system's opponent-process cells | 59 | |
| 8029960440 | Gestalt | in perception, "the whole may exceed the sum of its parts" | 60 | |
| 8029965178 | Necker Cube | helps us understand the difference between sensation and perception: the only stimuli we sense (see) are the black wedges; the circles, lines, and cube are all products of perception. |  | 61 |
| 8030004450 | figure-ground | the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground). |  | 62 |
| 8030034133 | grouping | the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups | 63 | |
| 8030044847 | proximity | we group nearby figures together |  | 64 |
| 8030048430 | continuity | we perceive smooth, continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones |  | 65 |
| 8030103040 | closure | we fill the gaps to create a complete, whole object |  | 66 |
| 8030121796 | 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. | 67 | |
| 8030124237 | visual cliff | a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals. Developed by Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk, they found that because most baby animals knew not to walk off the cliff that depth perception is mostly innate, just needs experience to perfect it. | 68 | |
| 8030172195 | binocular cues | depth cues, such as retinal disparity, that depend on the use of two eyes. helps judge distance of objects near you | 69 | |
| 8030176804 | retinal disparity | binocular cue for perceiving depth; compares images from each retina and the brain computes distance, greater disparity = closer object | 70 | |
| 8030178174 | monocular cues | Depth cues such as Interposition and Linear perspective, available to either eye alone. This is most helpful in perceiving the distance from objects far away from you. | 71 | |
| 8030205079 | monocular depth cue types | relative motion, interposition, light and shadow, linear perspective, relative size, and relative height | 72 | |
| 8030220159 | relative motion | you sit on a bus and the objects beyond our fixation point appear to move with you (sky, bridge, buildings) while objects in front of the point appear to move backwards (houses). |  | 73 |
| 8030250253 | interposition | if one object partially blocks our view of another, we perceive it as closer (blue circle is closer than red) |  | 74 |
| 8030262956 | light and shadow | we assume that light comes from above | 75 | |
| 8030274372 | linear perspective | parallel lines appear to meet in the distance, sharper angle of convergence = greater perceived distance |  | 76 |
| 8030281814 | relative size | if we assume two objects are similar in size, we perceive the one that casts a smaller retinal image as farther away |  | 77 |
| 8030295850 | relative height | we perceive objects that are higher in our visual field as farther away (house is farther away than the ducks) |  | 78 |
| 8030311776 | stroboscopic movement | brain perceives continuous movement in a rapid series of slightly varying images, this rapid succession of varying images is used in motion picture films | 79 | |
| 8030324711 | phi phenomenon | an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in succession |  | 80 |
| 8030351499 | perceptual constancy | a top-down process that involves perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent shapes, size, brightness, and color) even as illumination and retinal images change. | 81 | |
| 8030359103 | color constancy | perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object | 82 | |
| 8030374586 | brightness/ lightness constancy | we perceive objects as having constant brightness even as illumination varies | 83 | |
| 8030378433 | relative luminance | the amount of light an object reflects RELATIVE to its surroundings |  | 84 |
| 8030392473 | shape constancy | perceive the form of familiar objects as constant even when our retinas receive changing images |  | 85 |
| 8030406556 | size constancy | we perceive objects as having constant size even while our distance from them varies | 86 | |
| 8030416462 | moon illusion | moon looks up to 50% larger when near the horizon than when high in the sky because relationship between perceived distance and perceived size |  | 87 |
| 8030425814 | the ames room | a distorted room designed by Adelbert Ames that appears to be rectangular when viewed through a peephole, tricks brain to assume the person in the right corner is the same distance away as the person in the left corner and therefore appears larger |  | 88 |
| 8030447594 | perceptual adaptation | the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or inverted visual field |  | 89 |
| 8030466271 | pitch | a tone's experienced highness or lowness, depends of frequency | 90 | |
| 8030471905 | audition | the sense or act of hearing, we best hear sounds in the range of the human voice and we can hear differences among thousands of human voices | 91 | |
| 8030489853 | outer ear | channels sound waves through the auditory canal, visible portion of the year |  | 92 |
| 8030487796 | eardrum | vibrates when the outer ear channels sound waves through the auditory canal |  | 93 |
| 8030497637 | middle ear | chamber between eardrum and cochlea that contains 3 tiny bones (hammer, anvil, stirrup) that transmit vibrations of the eardrum to the cochlea |  | 94 |
| 8030505837 | *cochlea | a snail-shaped tube filled with fluid in the inner ear, incoming vibrations cause the membrane to vibrate which creates movement of the fluid |  | 95 |
| 8030513008 | basilar membrane | when the cochlea's fluid is jostled, the motion causes the hairs of the membrane to move which triggers impulses in nerve cells | 96 | |
| 8030525025 | auditory nerve | axons of nerve cells converge to form the auditory nerve, it sends neural messages (via the thalamus) to the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe | 97 | |
| 8030532540 | inner ear | the innermost part of the ear, contains the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs |  | 98 |
| 8030541351 | hair cells of basilar membrane | how mechanical vibrations triggered by sound waves are transduced into neural impluses | 99 | |
| 8030550662 | sensorineural hearing loss | also called nerve deafness, is hearing loss caused by the inability to transmit impulses from the cochlea to the brain. caused by damage to the cochlea's hair cells (basilar membrane), loud noises can cause this type of hearing loss | 100 | |
| 8030576739 | conduction hearing loss | is an inability to hear, resulting from damage to the structures of the middle or inner ear (such as rupture of the eardrum). | 101 | |
| 8030590422 | *process of hearing | The middle ear transmits the vibrations (sound waves) hit the eardrum → anvil → hammer → stirrup →cochlea's membrane (oval window) The incoming vibrations cause the cochlea's membrane (oval window) the to vibrate, moving the fluid that fills the tube. This motion causes ripples in the basilar membrane (hair cells). The movement of cells along the Basilar Membrane initiates transduction and the transmission of neural messages to the Auditory Cortex | 102 | |
| 8041763734 | place theory | theory that different hairs vibrate in the basilar membrane of the cochlea when they hear/ interpret different pitches. The brain determines a sound's pitch by the specific place on the cochlear membrane that is generating the neural signal, explains HIGH PITCHED SOUNDS | 103 | |
| 8041823188 | frequency theory | The rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch, believe that all the hairs vibrate but at different speeds. Explains LOW PITCHED SOUNDS | 104 | |
| 8041878384 | volley principle | combines place theory and frequency theory to explain the pitches in the middle range. | 105 | |
| 8041895641 | semicircular canals | where vestibular sense is located, looks like a 3D pretzel |  | 106 |
| 8041915391 | Vestibular sense | Tells us where our body is oriented in space, our sense of balance. The receptors for this information are tiny hairs in the semicircular canal of the inner ear. | 107 | |
| 8042046940 | kinesthetic sense (kinesthesia) | the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts, relative to each other, provides constant sensory feedback about what the muscles in your body are doing. Receptors reside in joints, muscles, and tendons. | 108 | |
| 8042109110 | pain | your body's way of telling you when something has gone wrong, it draws your attention to an injury and allows you to change your behavior. | 109 | |
| 8042125737 | nocieptors | sensory receptors that detect harmful temperatures, pressure, or chemicals and send that information through your spinal cord. | 110 | |
| 8042155119 | Endorphins | brain chemical that soothes pain, it is shown that when given a placebo to relieve pain the brain will release endorphins. | 111 | |
| 8042172062 | Phantom Limb | pain can be experienced in the absence of sensory input. (in the Sensory Cortex) | 112 | |
| 8042193802 | 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 fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain. | 113 | |
| 8042217298 | gustation | the sense of taste | 114 | |
| 8042237730 | taste receptors (types) | sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and Umami. | 115 | |
| 8042251000 | how taste helps us survive | sweet: energy source salty: sodium needed for physiological processes sour: potentially toxic acid bitter: potential posion Umami: protein | 116 | |
| 8042282358 | olfaction | sense of smell | 117 | |
| 8042288299 | anosmia | inability to smell | 118 | |
| 8042326329 | sensory interaction | the principle that one sense may influence another. Ex: when the smell of a food influences its taste | 119 | |
| 8042347884 | embodied cognition | in psychological science, the influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgements | 120 | |
| 8042371975 | synethesia | when a person's senses are joined so that one sort of sensation (such as hearing a sound) produces another (seeing color). | 121 | |
| 8042441497 | psychophysics | the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them | 122 | |
| 8042567624 | Ernest Weber | Ernst Weber noted that for people to really perceive a difference, the stimuli must differ by a constant "proportion" not a constant "amount". | 123 | |
| 8042626748 | acuity | refers to the sharpness, clearness and focus of a person's vision. It is a measure of the eye's spatial resolution, or ability to perceive shapes and figures in a 3-dimensional setting. | 124 | |
| 8042633407 | nearsightedness | MYOPIA, The ability to see near objects more clearly than distant objects. | 125 | |
| 8042636276 | farsightedness | HYPEROPIA, you can see distant objects clearly, but objects nearby may be blurry | 126 | |
| 8042640816 | *subtractive color | Formation of colors by removing some wavelengths of light | 127 | |
| 8042643902 | *additive color | Formation of colors by superimposing lights | 128 | |
| 8042649085 | movement after affects (MAE's) | is a visual illusion experienced after viewing a moving visual stimulus for a time with stationary eyes, and then fixating a stationary stimulus. The stationary stimulus appears to move in the opposite direction to the original | 129 | |
| 8042654939 | homunculus (senses) | distorted human figure drawn to reflect the relative sensory space our body parts occupy on the cerebral cortex. |  | 130 |
| 8042654940 | visual capture | The tendency for vision to dominate the other senses. | 131 | |
| 8042659127 | similarity | we group similar objects together | 132 | |
| 8042659128 | connectedness | is a sensation and perception term that refers to the perception of uniform or linked spots, lines, or areas as a single unit. | 133 | |
| 8042663482 | convergence | A binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object. The greater the inward strain, the closer the object. | 134 | |
| 8042666392 | muller-lyer illusion | an optical illusion in which a line with inward pointing arrowheads is seen as longer than an equal line with outward pointing arrowheads. |  | 135 |
| 8042666393 | motion parallax | monocular depth cue in which we view objects that are closer to us as moving faster than objects that are further away from us. | 136 | |
| 8042670889 | relative clarity | a monocular cue; light from distant objects passes through more atmosphere, therefore they are perceived as hazy and farther away than sharp, clear objects. | 137 | |
| 8042670945 | texture gradient | objects appear denser as they move away | 138 | |
| 8042675677 | reversible figures | optical illusion images that can go from looking like one thing to another | | 139 |
| 8042681010 | Ponzo illusion | a geometrical-optical illusion that involves two identical lines placed on a railroad track where the farther line looks longer because we perceive it as farther away |  | 140 |
| 8057096715 | noiceptors | pain receptor cells, come in three types; cutaneous (skin), somatic (bones and joints) and visceral (body organs) and can process pain that is mechanical, chemical or thermal in nature and transmit the information to the brain. | 141 |
