AP Psychology Sensation and Perception

Cocktail party effect

listening and responding to a friend in the noise and clutter of a party

Temporal lobe

lobe containing auditory cortex

Basilar membrane

long membrane that runs the length of the cochlea (inside the ear) and contains cilia that act as sound receptors.

Auditory canal

small tube in the outer ear between ear flap and eardrum. Transfers sound waves through the ear.

signal detection

the ability to detect the presence of a weak stimulus (signal), no single threshold for this; rather, itis dependent on experience, expectations, motivations, and alertness. ex/ parents are much more likely to hear a crying baby at a party than non-parents

selective attention

the conscious focus on one stimulus among many

Transduction

the convergence of energy into a different form (much like our brain receiving light energy and converting it to neurochemical energy)

gestalt principles

the formation of whole, meaningful, or continuous stimuli when given mixed or unintegrated pieces of information

Hammer

A tiny bone that passes vibrations from the eardrum to the anvil.

Synesthesia

a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway

Hearing

a process by which sounds waves enter the 'outer ear' through the auditory canal to the eardrum

Cochlea

a spiral-shaped, fluid-filled inner ear structure; it is lined with cilia (tiny hairs) that move when vibrated and cause a nerve impulse to form.

Eardrum

a thin flap of skin at the end of the ear canal. When sound waves hit this it creates vibrations that travel through the middle ear to the inner ear. The inner ear then sends a message to our brain about what we are hearing.

Gustav Fechner and Ernst Weber

absolute threshold experiments with light photons and sound waves

Odorant receptors

activate neurochemical signals, these are activated by the particular chemicals that fit the receptor cell

Retina

back of the eye that is made up of many cell layers and light must pass through these layer in order for transduction to occur

Sensorineural hearing loss

can occur due to damage to the cochlear receptor hairs/cells or auditory nerves (neurological hearing loss)

Conductive hearing loss

can occur due to damage to the mechanical system (eardrum) that conducts sound waves to the cochlea (mechanical hearing loss)

Color blindness or total blindness

can occur due to malfunctioning cones, rods, or the neural pathways (neurological vision loss), as well as any structural damage to the eye itself (mechanical vision loss)

context effects

can trigger varying perceptions based on the context or set of expectations one has about an object, sound, touch, etc

Iris

colored part of the eye, muscle that opens and closes the pupil

olfactory cortex

cortex in the brain that deciphers the combination of activated receptors to recognize the smell (just as letters are into words) and human beings are able to experience roughly 10,000 different perceivable odors

David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel

feature receptors and visual cortex research (motion detection)

Feature receptors

in the occipital lobe relay information on shape, edges, angles, etc. to other parts of the brain and allow us to recognize familiar faces and shapes from various angles, colors, etc.

perceptual set

is a mental disposition to see one thing over another

Vestibular sense

motion and balance, which monitors head position and movement

Ganglion cells

neurons that relay information from the retina to the brain via the optic nerve. There are at least three classes of ganglion cells (midget, parasol, and bistratified), which vary in function and connect to different visual centers in the brain. For example, parasol ganglion cells are responsible for detecting motion, while midget ganglion cells detect visual details.

difference threshold

our ability to detect the difference in signals; the threshold itself, like the absolute threshold, is one we can recognize at 50%+ accuracy

Kinesthesia

our sense of position regarding our body and its parts, as well as vestibular sense

Lens

part of the eye behind the pupil that works as a magnifying glass that reflects the light toward the back of the eye constantly changes depending on whether we are looking at objects close to us or far away.

Optic nerve

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

Cones

parts of the eye in the center of the retina that only sees in color

Rods

parts of the eye that are spread throughout the outside of the retina and only see in black and white

Top-down processing

processing that constructs perceptions that draw from our own experiences and expectations—not just the object or stimulation itself

Bottom-up processing

processing that starts at sensory receptors and works up to higher levels of processing—it is basically seeing something but having no understanding of what it is

Vision

pulses of electromagnetic energy (light) are received through the cornea, then the pupil, then the lens which focuses the light on the retina (the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye) As the light energy hits the retina, certain receptors called rods and cones are activated and send neurochemical signals to the brain through bipolar and ganglion cells to your thalamus via the optic nerve

Balance

semicircular canals and vestibular sacs (residing next to the cochlea) contain fluid that moves when your head rotates or tilts. This movement stimulates hair-like receptors which send messages to the cerebellum to determine your stability.

olfactory bulb

sends neurochemical signals directly to the brain (the thalamus is not involved in this process, unlike vision and audition)

Taste

sense detected on bumps which line the tongue, stretching all the way back to the throat and experienced through a series of interactions between taste, texture, and smell. Includes salty, sweet, bitter, sour, umami (brothy/savory)Smell - sense that functions through the activation of receptor cells in the olfactory membrane at the top of the naval cavity

Nociceptors

sensory receptors for painful stimuli

Pupil

small black part of eye where light passes through that opens and closes to adjust how much light comes in (like a shutter on a camera)

Amplitude

the height of an energy wave, in this case sound wave, which is how we determine loudness

Pitch

the high or low frequency of a sound

Subliminal messaging

the impact of stimuli on our cognition and judgement that is too quick or weak to consciously interpret or process

embodied cognition

the impact of touch on cognitive preferences and judgments

Decibels

the measure of sound volume 0 being the absolute threshold, and with a 10-fold increase in volume for every 10

absolute threshold

the minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50%+ of the time

Figure-ground

the organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings (face or vases—can only see one at a time) (a gestalt principle of perception)

Grouping

the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups based on continuity, proximity, and closure (a gestalt principle of perception)

place theory

the pitch theory that certain hairs are only activated by certain frequencies

frequency theory

the pitch theory that neurons fire in unison with the vibrations to match the frequency of the vibrations, which is interpreted by the brain at the same rate

perceptual constancy

the recognition of things from different angles and colors

trichromatic theory

theory that our cones and brain see colors in combinations of mixing red/green/blue receptors

opponent process theory

theory that proposes that some receptors eliminate opposing colors that share the same pathway (red-green, yellow-blue, black-white) in the retina

Auditory cortex

the section of the brain that processes information received through hearing. Located in the temporal lobe, a part of the cerebral cortex, it receives signals from the ears pertaining to pitch and volume of sound.

Touch

the sensation that allows us to experience pressure, pain, hot, & cold

parallel processing

the simultaneous perception of speed, distance, texture, color, etc.

Gate-control

the theory that small fibers are constantly sending pain signals to the brain, while the large fibers constantly block said signals until stimulated

Anvil

tiny bone that passes vibrations from the hammer to the stirrup.

Auditory nerve

transmits information from the inner ear (cochlea) to the brain in the form of sound energy that impinges on the eardrum (tympanic membrane).

Sensory adaptation

type of losing attention by diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation (not smelling one's own house, clothes, odor)

Change blindness

type of losing attention by failing to notice changes in the environment, especially when selective attention focuses our conscious thought on a single stimuli

Inattentional blindness

type of losing attention by not noticing stimuli when focused on others

Cochlear fluid

vibrations here cause tiny hair cells to generate nerve impulses that then travel to the brain.

Fovea

where the lens focuses light

Cornea

white part of the eye that protects and helps reflect light and bends lights to provide focus