Chapter 15: Basic Concepts of Sensation and Perception

When people look at a photograph of an adult-child pair and are told that the two individuals are parent and child, the people tend to say the pair looks more alike than people who are told the pair is unrelated. This is most likely due to:

perceptual set.

Perceptual set is the result of ______________, which we form to organize and interpret unfamiliar information.

schemas

______________ is the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.

Priming.

______________ occurs below your absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Subliminal stimulation

_____________ refers to the conversion of one form of energy into another.

Transduction

The size of the difference threshold is greater for heavier objects than for lighter ones. This best illustrates:

Weber's law.

A neutral facial expression may be perceived as sadder at a funeral than at a circus. This best illustrates:

a context effect.

Sensory analysis starts at the entry level (i.e., with the sensory receptors) and works up to the integration of sensory information in the brain. This process is called:

bottom-up processing.

Sensory adaptation can be defined as:

diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.

Professor Brandt is conducting a study on _______________. He shows his study participants a picture of an adult-child pair. He tells half of the participants that they are looking at a parent and her child. He tells the other half that they are looking at a daycare worker and a child in the daycare center. The group that thinks the pair is related rates them as looking more alike than the group that thinks they are NOT related.

perceptual set

After hearing that Bryce had served a prison sentence, Janet began to perceive his genuinely friendly behavior as insincere and manipulative. This best illustrates the impact of:

perceptual set.

Once John learned of Sara's abusive past, he began to perceive her cautious behavior around men as more self-protective rather than rude. This best illustrates the impact of:

perceptual set.

Experiencing sudden pain is to _____________ as recognizing that you are suffering a heart attack is to _____________.

sensation; perception

When you arrived at the gym Tuesday morning, you noticed the musty odor of the showers in the locker room. As you finished changing, you did not notice the smell. This is probably the result of:

sensory adaptation.

Professor Damion studies the impact of boredom and fatigue on people's absolute thresholds. His research is based on:

signal detection theory.

A researcher subliminally presents a visual image to study participants, which increases the likelihood that they will later recognize the same briefly presented image. This best illustrates:

that information can be processed outside of conscious awareness.

Dennis, a nurse, notes that some parents of asthmatic children respond to very small changes in their children's breathing, and seek care accordingly. However, other parents might not notice the same small changes. This type of difference in reaction to stimuli is best explained by:

the signal detection theory.

Information processing is guided by higher-level mental processes such as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations. This process is called:

top-down processing.

The fact that perceptions involve more than the sum of our sensations best illustrates the importance of:

top-down processing.

You open your eyes in the morning to see flowers by your bedside. At that point, your eyes are receiving light energy, which they change into neural messages for the brain to process. This conversion of one form of energy into another is called:

transduction.