Psychology In Everyday Life Chapter 5

The blind spot in your retina is located where

the optical nerve leaves the eye

Retinal disparity

A binocular cue for perceiving depth. By comparing images from the two eyes, the brain computes distance-the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object.

Cochlea

A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear; sound waves traveling through the cochlear fluid trigger nerve impulses.

Weber's Law states that for a difference to be perceived, two stimuli must differ by

A constant minimum percentage

Monocular cue

A depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone.

Binocular cue

A depth cue, such as retinal disparity, that depends on the use of two eyes.

Visual cliff

A laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.

Perceptual set

A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

Perceptual consistency

Perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent color, brightness, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change.

Hypnosis

A social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur.

Pitch

A tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency.

Priming

Activating, often unconsciously, associations in our mind, thus setting us up to perceive or remember objects or events in certain ways.

Gestalt

An organized whole. Gestalt psychology emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Subliminal stimuli are

Below our absolute threshold for conscious awareness

Subliminal

Below our absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Sensation is to (blank) as perception is to (blank)

Bottom up processing; top down processing

Cones are the eye's receptor cells that are especially sensitive to (blank) light and are responsible for our (blank) vision

Bright; color

The amplitude of a sound wave determines our perception of loudness. The amplitude of a light wave determines our perception of

Brightness

Transduction

Changing one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret.

Perceptual adaptation

In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Another term for difference threshold is the

Just noticeable difference

(Blank) is your sense of body position and movement. Your (blank, blank) specifically monitors your head's movement, with sensors in the inner ear.

Kinesthesia; vestibular sense

Color constancy

Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.

Feature detector

Nerve cell in the brain that responds to specific features of a stimulus, such as edges, lines, and angles.

Sensory adaptation

Reduced sensitivity in response to constant stimulation.

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.

Cones

Retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina; in daylight or well-lit conditions, cones detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations.

Rods

Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond.

rods

Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond.

We have specialized nerve receptors for detecting which five tastes? How did this ability aid our ancestors?

Sweet, salty, sour, butter, umami Being able to detect pleasurable tastes enabled our ancestors to seek out energy and protein rich foods

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.

Intensity

The amount of energy in a light wave or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude.

Extrasensory perception (ESP)

The controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input, such as through telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.

Hue

The dimension of color that is determine by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, and so forth.

Wavelength

The distance from the peak if one light or sound wave to the peak of the next.

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.

Retina

The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye; contains the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information.

Difference threshold

The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. (Just a noticeable difference)

absolute threshhold

The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus (light, sound, odor, pressure) 50% of the time The point at which we can detect a stimulus half the time

Optic nerve

The nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain.

Frequency

The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second).

Figure-ground

The organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground).

Grouping

The perceptual tendency to air organize stimuli into meaningful groups.

Blind spot

The point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye; this part of the retina is "blind" because it has no receptor cells.

Sensory interaction

The principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences taste.

Weber's law

The principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than constant amount).

Perception

The process by which our brain organizes and interprets sensory information, transforming it into meaningful objects and events.

Sensation

The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system take in stimulus energies from our environment.

Parallel processing

The processing of many aspects of a problem or scene at the same time; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision.

Vestibular sense

The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance.

Audition

The sense or act of hearing.

Kinesthesis

The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.

Two theories together account for color vision. The Young-Hlemholtz trichromatic (three color) theory shows that the eye contains (blank) and the opponent process theory accounts for the nervous system's having (blank)

Three types of color receptors; opponent process cells

intensity

amount of energy in light or sound wave, which influences what we perceive as brightness or loudness. Determined by the wave's amplitude p. 141

bottom-up processing

analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information

The snail-shaped tube in the inner ear, where sounds waves are converted into neural activity is called

cochlea

The visual cliff experiments suggest that

crawling human infants are very young animals perceive depth

Our perceptual set influences what we perceive. This mental tendency reflects our

experiences, assumptions, and expectations

prosopagnosia

face blindness

The cells in the visual cortex that respond to certain lines, edges, and angles are called

feature detectors

In listening to a concert, you attend to the solo instrument and perceive to orchestra as accompaniment. This illustrates the organized principle of

figure ground

feature detectors

nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement

Our tendencies to fill in the gaps and to perceive a pattern as continuous are two different examples of the organizing principle called

grouping

Sensory adaptation helps us focus on

important changes in the environment

top-down processing

information processing guided by higher level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.

Depth perception underlines our ability to

judge distances

Two examples of (blank) depth cue are interposition and linear perspective

monocular cues

Weber's Law

p. 137 principle that, to be perceived as different, 2 stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount)

The brain's ability to process many aspects of an object or a problem simultaneously is called

parallel processing

The process by which we organize and interpret sensory information is called

perception

In experiments, people have worn glasses that turned their visual fields upside down. After a period of adjustment, they learned to function quite well. This ability is called

perceptual adaptation

Perceiving a tomato as consistently red, despite lighting shifts, is an example of

perceptual constancy

Of the 4 skin senses that make up our senses of touch, only (blank) has its own identifiable receptor cells

pressure

What are the 4 skin senses?

pressure, warmth, cold and pain

After surgery to restore vision, patients who had been blind from birth had a difficulty

recognized objects by sight

sensation v perception

sensation is the bottom-up process by which the physical sensory system receives and presents stimuli. Perception is the top-down mental process of organizing and interpreting sensory input. They work together to help sort out complex images

A food's aroma can greatly enhance taste. This is an example of:

sensory interaction

hue

the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light

wavelength

the distance from the peak of one light or sound to the peak of the next one

optic nerve

the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain

blind spot

the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because no receptor cells are located there

The characteristic of light that determines the color we experience, such are blue or green, is

wavelength