PSYCH 1100 Chapter 6: Sensation and Perception

guilty

A jury is deliberating in a room that had been freshly painted the day before. The room is still giving off a strong paint odor. It is more likely that the jury will render a(n) _____ verdict.

long

Bees can see ultraviolet light, but cannot see the color red. This means that bees cannot see _____ wavelengths.

anosmia

Cynthia had her deviated septum repaired last week. Her nose is packed with gauze. She has no interest in eating. Perhaps Cynthia has developed:

size

Drivers sometimes overestimate the distance between their own vehicles and pedestrians who are short, because they rely on the distance cue known as relative _____.

cones

In dim light the _____ in your eyes are ineffectual

hue

In terms of our sensory experience of light, wavelength is to _____ as wave intensity is to brightness.

temporal

Jasmine was in a serious car accident and is having trouble recognizing familiar faces. She most likely suffered damage to her _____ lobe, just behind her right ear.

basilar

Kari is a fan of heavy metal music. Her mother is concerned that prolonged exposure to ear-splitting music could most likely damage her _____ membrane.

interposition

Pedro recognized that his son was closer to him than his daughter because his son partially obstructed his view of his daughter. Pedro's perception was most clearly influenced by a depth cue known as:

absolute

Studying the impact of boredom and fatigue on people's _____ thresholds would involve research based on signal detection theory.

psychological

Studying the relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli (e.g., intensity) and the _____ experience of them involves the field known as psychophysics.

accommodate

Talia is 45 years old. She has started to notice that newspaper print is too small for her to read. Talia needs reading glasses because the lenses of her eyes are less able to _____.

iris

The FBI is considering a new identification method. Instead of using old-fashioned fingerprints, they have decided to scan the _____.

hair

The basilar membrane and taste bud receptors are alike because they both use _____ cells to detect sensations.

perceptions

The fact that _____ involve more than the sum of our sensations best illustrates the importance of top-down processing.

better

When people are told that a bottle of wine is much more expensive than it really is, they are likely to believe it tastes _____ than it would otherwise.

kinesthetic

You are playing "Ring Around the Rosie" with your little cousins and are spinning around and around. When you stop you still feel as though you are spinning because your semicircular canals and _____ receptors haven't returned to their neutral state.

retinal

You stayed up way too late last night and your eyes are tired. You close your eyes, and as you rub them you notice a white light. This is because your _____ cells are extremely responsive, and the pressure from your hand triggers them.

retinal disparity

a binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing images from the two eyeballs, the brain computes distance - the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the close the object.

human factors psychology

a branch of psychology that explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be made safe and easy to use.

cochlea

a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.

synaesthesia

a condition in which the senses become joined

cochlear implant

a device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea.

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.

iris

a ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening.

signal detection theory

a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimuli (signal0 amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and level of fatigue.

pitch

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

phi phenomenon

an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession.

gestalt

an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

bottom-up-processing

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

subliminal

below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

transduction

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

binocular cues

depth clues, such as retinal disparity, that depend on the use of two eyes.

monocular cues

depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone.

sensory adaptation

diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.

sensorineural hearing loss

hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness.

conduction hearing loss

hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.

place theory

in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated.

frequency theory

in hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch.

perceptual adaptation

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

top-down processing

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

feature detectors

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

color constancy

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

perceptual constancy

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

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.

rods

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

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.

priming

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

pupil

the adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters.

intensity

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

fovea

the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster.

middle ear

the chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window.

extrasensory perception (ESP)

the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.

hue

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

wavelength

the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next. Electromagnetic wavelengths vary from short blips of cosmic ray to the long pulses of radio transmission.

inner ear

the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs.

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.

difference threshold

the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference (or jnd).

absolute threshold

the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular experience of them.

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 organize stimuli into coherent groups.

blind spot

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

sensory interaction

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

Weber's law

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

sensation

the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.

accommodation

the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina.

perception

the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.

parallel processing

the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information including vision. Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving.

vestibular sense

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

audition

the sense or act of hearing.

parapsychology

the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis.

psychophysics

the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.

kinesthesis

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

opponent-process theory

the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision. For example, some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red; others are stimulated by red and inhibited by green.

Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three-color) theory

the theory that the retina contains three different color receptors - one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue - which, when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color.

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.

lens

the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina.