Unit 3 sensation and perception
relative clarity
hazy object seen as more distant
What is conductive hearing loss?
hearing damage caused by damage to bones
What is sensineural hearing loss?
hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea
what are the three steps of transduction
receive sensory stimulation transform that stimulation into neural impulses deliver the neural info into your brain
which of the following is the best advice for a person concerned about occasional insomnia
relax and drink a glass of milk before bedtime
the home environment most clearly has a greater influence on children's_____ than on their _____
religious beliefs; personality
Which of the following is the correct order of the eye-to-brain pathway of vision?
Retina, optic nerve, thalamus, occipital lobe
what does the ear canal do
an entryway for soundwaves which get sent to the eardrum
what do the lens do?
bends or reshapes the light and sends it to the back of the eyes
What do bipolar cells do?
connect to rods and cones and stimulate forward those bipolar cells
What is kinethesis?
conscious awareness of position and movement
what does the fovea do
contains the receptors for color called cones. fovea = focus
what is the role of the retina
contains the receptors for vision
What are context effects?
context and culture can alter perception
What is extrasensory perception?
controversial claim that perception can occur from sensory input
what is acoustical transduction
conversion of sound waves into neural impulses in the hair cells of the inner ear
What do we call the transparent, outer protective layer that light passes through as it enters the eye?
cornea
What do the semicircular canals do?
help you keep your balance. the liquid inside these canals slosh around and moves tiny hairs
short wavelength
high frequency (bluish colors, high-pitched sounds)
Where does transduction occur?
retina
The view from Narmeen's left eye is slightly different from the view from her right eye. This is due to which depth cue?
retinal disperity
Which of the following anatomical structures is involved in the vestibular sense?
semicircular canals
What does the auditory nerve do?
sends electrical signals to the brain
what is light and shadow
shading produces a sense of depth consistent with our assumption that light comes from above
What are ganglion cells?
third layer of cells that form the optic nerve
rods
120 million, located on the peripheral, high sensitivity to dim light, low color sensitivity, low detail sensitivity
cones
6 million, located at center, low sensitivity to dim light, high color sensitivity, high detail sensitivity
Which of the following examples best illustrates the concept of interposition?
Because the chair partially obscured his view of the sofa, Brendan perceived the chair as being closer than the sofa.
Which of the following best illustrates the most predictable effect of schemas on perception?
Grant has more difficulty recognizing a penguin as a bird than he does a blue jay.
Who studied absolute threshold?
Gustav Fechner
what do cones do
Let you see color
What is the gate control theory?
Melzak and Wall (1965, 1983) proposed that our spinal cord contains neurological "gates" that either block pain or allow it to be sensed.
In a study on taste, what would researchers need to do to test participants' ability to distinguish umami from similar sensations?
Place disks soaked in MSG on the participants' tongues. Then replace those disks with disks that have been soaked in water. Compare the participants' reactions.
Denise has damaged her auditory nerve and now has difficulty understanding what people are saying. Which of the following descriptions explains how that damage impairs her hearing?
Sound messages fail to be transmitted directly to the brain.
What does the pinna do?
The pinna directs the sounds into the ear canal.
What is parallel processing?
The processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously
what is synthesia
a condition in which stimulation of one sense also evokes another
what is the visual cliff
a lab device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals
what is the perceptual set
a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another
What is signal detection theory?
a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). (sound hearing test)
What does the pupil do?
allows light to come in by expanding/contracting
what is intensity amplitude
amount of energy in a wave determined by the amplitude relates to the perceived loudness
What is the volley principle?
an individual neuron cannot fire faster than 1000 times per second
what is relative motion
as we move, objects that are actually stable may appear to move
Greater the retinal disparity, the _______________ the object
closer
In transmitting sensory information to the brain, an electrical signal travels from the _________ of a single neuron
dendrites to the cell body to the axon
What are monocular cues?
depth cues available to either eye alone
What are binocular cues?
depth cues, such as retinal disparity, that depend on the use of two eyes
Kimmie stood on the sidewalk rather than crossing the street because she saw that the approaching car was quite close to her. Which of the following concepts is best illustrated in this example?
depth perception
what do the rods do
detect light, not as fine detail
What is frequency?
dimension of frequency determined by the wavelength of a sound
What is sensory adaptation?
diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation
Basing decisions or conclusions on observable evidence describes which of the following?
empirical evidence
What is change blindness?
failing to notice changes in the environment
What is hyperopia?
farsightedness
What do we call the specialized neurons in the occiptial lobe's visual cortex that respond to particular edges, lines, angles, and movements?
feature detector
What does the malleus do?
form a small short chain and transmits vibrations caused by sound waves which get sent to the eardrum
what is relative size
if two objects are similar in size, we perceive the one that casts a smaller retinal image to be farther away
which of the following statements concerning sleep is valid?
individuals do not usually act out in their dreams
research participants who carefully observe and report their immediate reactions to different musical sounds are using the method known as
introspection
a picture of a cat is briefly flashed in the left visual field and a picture of a mouse is briefly flashed in the right visual field of a split-brain person. the individual will be able to use their
left hand to indicate they saw a cat
long wavelength
low frequency (reddish colors, low-pitched sounds)
what does the iris do
muscle surrounding the pupil; allows light to come in
what is myopia
nearsightedness (objects nearby are seen more clearly than distant ones
What are feature detectors? who discovered them?
neurons that respond to specific characteristics of a stimulus. discovered by David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel
texture gradient
objects far away appear smaller and more densely packed
what is interposition
objects that occlude (block) other objects tend to be perceived as closer this is a monocular cue
what is motion perception
objects travelling towards us grow in size and those moving away shrink
Which of the following explains reversed-color afterimages?
opponent process theory
What is Gestalt
organize the stuff we see
what is the main idea of gestalt
organize the stuff we see
What is linear perspective?
parallel lines appear to converge with distance
What is perceptual constancy?
perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change
Helena did not recognize her English teacher when she unexpectedly saw him while traveling in Paris, even though she knew him well back in the classroom. The fact that Helena can recognize her teacher back home more easily than in Paris best demonstrates what concept?
perceptual set
What do we call a mental predisposition that influences our interpretation of a stimulus?
perceptual set
What do we call the illusion of movement that results from two or more stationary, adjacent lights blinking on and off in quick succession?
phi phenomenon
what is the touch/tactile made of
pressure, warmth, cold, and pain
What is the occipital lobe?
primary visual cortex
According to the gate control theory of pain, which of the following contains a neurological gate that controls the transmission of pain messages to the brain?
spinal cord
what is the frequency theory
states that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch
professor garcia recently gave a calculus test and noticed that the distribution of scores had a very small standard deviation. this indicates the
students test scores tended to be very similar to one another
What is the place theory?
suggests that sound frequencies stimulate the basilar membrane at specific places resulting in perceived pitch
what sensations does taste consist of?
sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami
what does the optic nerve do
takes signal to the top of the processing route in the primary visual cortex
What is intensity?
the amount of energy in a wave determined by the amplitude. related to perceive brightness
what is the fovea
the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster
What is retinal disparity?
the difference between two images
what is hue/color
the dimension of color determined by the wavelength of the light
What is acommodation?
the eye's lens changes shape to help focus near or far objects on the retina
what is the vestibular sense motions
the head and body's sense of balance
what is apparent motion
the illusion that something is moving when it is not
What is inattentional blindness?
the inability to see an object or a person in our midst
what is the difference threshold
the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time. AKA just noticeable difference
What are absolute thresholds?
the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time
What is the figure-ground relationship?
the organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings
what is grouping
the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups
what is a blind spot
the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because no receptor cells are located there
what is sensory interaction
the principle that one sense may influence another
What is selective attention?
the process of focusing on a particular object in the environment for a certain period of time
What occurs when experiences influence our interpretation of data?
top down processing
What do we call the conversion of stimulus energies, like sights and sounds, into neural impulses?
transduction
What does the cochlea do?
transforms sound vibrations to auditory signals
What is Weber's Law?
two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage to be perceived as different
what are the three characteristics of light
wavelength (hue/color) intensity (brightness) saturation (purity)
what is relative height
we perceive objects higher in our field of vision as farther away
What is the phi phenomenon?
when lights flash at a certain speed they tend to present illusions of motion. NEON
what is the subliminal threshold
when stimuli are below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness
what is convergence
when the two eyes move inward to see close objects and outward to see faraway objects
what does the cornea do
where light enters the eye
What is the cocktail party effect?
your ability to attend to only one voice among many