psych 5 quiz

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 influences what we perceive as brightness or loudness. determined by the wave's amplitude (height).

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.

embodied cognition

the influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments.

The blind spot in your retina is located where

the optic nerve leaves the eye.

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 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 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).

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 receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.

Fovea

the retina's area of central focus.

vestibular sense

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

relative size

the smaller retinal image is farther away

kinesthesia

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 "turned on" by green and "turned off" by red; others are turned on by red and off by green.

Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three-color) theory

the theory that the retina contains three different types of color receptors—one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue. When stimulated in combination, these receptors can produce the perception of any color.

sensorineural hearing loss

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

Using sound as your example, show how these concepts differ: absolute threshold, subliminal stimulation, and difference threshold.

Absolute threshold is the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular sound (such as an approaching bike on the sidewalk behind you) 50 percent of the time. Subliminal stimulation happens when, without your awareness, your sensory system processes a sound that is below your absolute threshold. A difference threshold is the minimum difference needed to distinguish between two stimuli (such as between the sound of a bike and the sound of a runner coming up behind you).

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

cochlea

Suppose each pixel on a TV screen or computer monitor codes the color of an image at that point in terms of red, blue, and green values. This closely resembles the way that:

color is represented in the retina

The visual cliff experiments suggest that

crawling human infants and very young animals perceive depth.

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 wave or sound wave to the peak of the next

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; contains the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information. (this area's millions of cells convert the particles of light energy into neural impulses and forward those to the brain. The brain reassembles them into what we perceive as an upright object.)

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

wavelength

relative height

we perceive objects higher in our field of vision as farther away

Kiara excels at gymnastics, especially at balance-beam routines. Her skill depends in large part on her _____ sense.

vestibular

Ernst Weber

1795-1878; Field: perception; Contributions: just-noticeable-difference (JND) that eventually becomes Weber's law; Studies: 1st study on JND

how do we perceive motion?

As objects move, we assume that shrinking objects are moving away and enlarging objects are approaching. The brain computes motion imperfectly, with young children especially at risk of incorrectly perceiving approaching hazards such as vehicles.

relative motion

As we move, objects that are actually stable may appear to move

What does research on restored vision, sensory restriction, and perceptual adaptation reveal about the effects of experience on perception?

Experience guides our perceptual interpretations. Some perceptual abilities (such as color and figure-ground perception) are inborn. But people blind from birth who gain sight after surgery lack the experience to visually recognize shapes, forms, and complete faces. Sensory restriction research indicates that there is a critical period for some aspects of sensory and perceptual development. Without early stimulation, the brain's neural organization does not develop normally. Given eyeglasses that shift the world slightly to the left or right, turn it upside down, or reverse it, people can, through perceptual adaptation, learn to move about with ease.

What do we mean when we say that, in perception, "the whole may exceed the sum of its parts"?

Gestalt psychologists used this saying to describe our perceptual tendency to organize clusters of stimuli into meaningful forms or groups.

_________is your sense of body position and movement. Your _________ ________specifically monitors your head's movement, with sensors in the inner ear.

Kinesthesia; vestibular sense

What structures in the eye help focus that energy?

Light entering the eye through the pupil is focused by the lens on the retina—the inner surface of the eye.

A simplified summary of visual information processing

Light waves reflect off the image and travel into your eyes. Receptor cells in your retina convert the light waves' energy into millions of neural impulses sent to your brain. Your brain's detector cells and work teams process the different parts of this visual input—including color, depth, movement, and form—on separate but parallel paths. Your brain pools the results and produces a meaningful image, which it compares to previously stored images.

light and shadow

Nearby objects reflect more light to eyes. Given two identical objects, the dimmer one seems farther away

David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel

Nobel-prize-winning researchers who discovered "feature detectors" within the brain

How do absolute thresholds and difference thresholds differ?

Our absolute threshold is the minimum stimulation needed for us to be consciously aware of any stimulus 50 percent of the time. (Stimuli below that threshold are subliminal.) A difference threshold (also called the just noticeable difference, or jnd) is the minimum change needed to detect a difference between two stimuli 50 percent of the time. Weber's law states that two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant minimum amount).

What are the four basic touch sensations, and how do we sense touch?

Our sense of touch is actually several senses—pressure, warmth, cold, and pain—that combine to produce other sensations, such as "hot."

What three steps are basic to all our sensory systems?

Our senses (1) receive sensory stimulation (often using specialized receptor cells); (2) transform that stimulation into neural impulses; and (3) deliver the neural information to the brain. Transduction is the process of converting one form of energy into another.

What are sensation and perception?

Sensation is the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive information and transmit it to the brain. Perception is the process by which our brain organizes and interprets that information.

How does sensory interaction influence our perceptions, and what is embodied cognition?

Sensory interaction is the influence of one sense on another. This occurs, for example, when the smell of a favorite food enhances its taste. Embodied cognition is the influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments.

Color processing occurs in two stages:

The retina's red, green, and blue cones respond in varying degrees to different color stimuli, as the Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory suggested. The cones' responses are then processed by opponent-process cells, as Hering's opponent-process theory proposed.

Why is it that after wearing shoes for a while, you cease to notice them (until questions like this draw your attention back to them)?

The shoes provide constant stimulation. Thanks to sensory adaptation, we tend to focus primarily on changing stimuli.

What are the claims of ESP, and what have most research psychologists concluded after putting these claims to the test?

The three most testable forms of extrasensory perception (ESP) are telepathy (mind-to-mind communication), clairvoyance (perceiving remote events), and precognition (perceiving future events). Researchers have not been able to replicate (reproduce) ESP effects under controlled conditions.

How are we affected by subliminal stimuli?

We do sense some stimuli subliminally—less than 50 percent of the time—and can be affected by these sensations. But although we can be primed, subliminal stimuli have no powerful, enduring influence on behavior.

Closure

We fill in gaps to create a complete, whole object. (Thus, we assume that the circles are complete but partially blocked by the (illusory) triangle. Add nothing more than little lines to close off the circles, and your brain stops constructing a triangle)

Proximity

We group nearby figures together. (We see not six separate lines, but three sets of two lines)

What is the function of sensory adaptation?

We grow less sensitive to constant sensory input. This diminished sensitivity to constant or routine odors, sounds, and touches (sensory adaptation) focuses our attention on informative changes in our environment.

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

We have specialized receptors for detecting sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami tastes. Being able to detect pleasurable tastes enabled our ancestors to seek out energy- and protein-rich foods. Detecting aversive tastes deterred them from eating toxic substances, increasing their chances of survival.

Continuity

We perceive smooth, continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones. (a pattern could be a series of alternating semicircles, but we perceive it as two continuous lines—one wavy, one straight)

What mental processes allow you to perceive a lemon as yellow?

Your brain constructs this perception of color in two stages. In the first stage, the lemon reflects light energy into your eyes, where it is transformed into neural messages. Three sets of cones, each sensitive to a different light frequency (red, blue, and green) process color. In this case, the light energy stimulates both red-sensitive and green-sensitive cones. In the second stage, opponent-process cells sensitive to paired opposites of color (red/green, yellow/blue, and black/white) evaluate the incoming neural messages as they pass through your optic nerve to the thalamus and visual cortex. When the yellow-sensitive opponent-process cells are stimulated, you identify the lemon as yellow.

cochlea

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

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.

Janet suffers from arthritis and is in constant pain. It is likely that her nociceptors:

are always turned on

Tinnitus is a(n) _____ phantom sensation.

auditory (ringing in the ears)

After a rap concert, as Dominique walks out into the fresh air, she notices her ears are ringing. This ringing indicates possible damage to the hair cells of her _____ membrane.

basilar

subliminal

below a person's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Tania was running outside and she felt a sensation on her leg and stopped to look. She saw a large red bump that she deduced was caused by getting stung by an insect. This deduction seemed only to increase her anxiety and pain. The influence of the sting itself on Tania's pain is a(n) _____ influence. The influence of her deduction is a(n) _____ influence.

bottom-up; top-down

The amplitude of a light wave determines our perception of ________.

brightness

Kendra went to a fundraiser, and the organizers gave her a mug of coffee when she arrived. Later, she felt closer to the organizers and contributed generously to the cause. What might be occurring in this scenario?

embodied cognition

Several days ago, Mitchell fell and hurt his ankle. Although it bothered him a little, he continued to walk on it. When he finally went to the doctor for X-rays, he found out he had a broken bone. It is likely that Mitchell carries a gene that boosts the availability of _____.

endorphins

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

experiences, assumptions, and expectations.

Almost half of all Americans surveyed believe _____ is possible.

extrasensory perception

Psychologists have done careful research to test the existence of ESP (extrasensory perception).

false

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

feature detectors

In terms of perception, a band's lead singer would be considered _______________ (figure/ground), and the other musicians would be considered ________________ (figure/ground).

figure, ground

In listening to a concert, you attend to the star performer and perceive the other musicians as accompaniment. This illustrates the organizing principle of

figure-ground.

Interposition

if one object partially blocks our view of another, we perceive it as closer

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 underlies our ability to

judge distances.

Another term for difference threshold is the ________ _______ _______.

just noticeable difference

The amplitude of a sound wave determines our perception of ____________ (loudness/pitch).

loudness

The longer the sound waves, the ____________ (lower/higher) their frequency and the ___________ (lower/higher) their pitch.

lower

When we see the mouth movements for "ga" while hearing "ba" we may perceive "da." This BEST illustrates the _____ effect.

mcgurk

Amplitude

measured in units of sound pressure called decibels and controls the perceived loudness of the sound. In other words, the physical intensity of the sound depends on the amplitude. height of a wave's crest

Two examples of ______ depth cues are interposition and linear perspective.

monocular

feature detectors

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

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

parallel processing

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 color, brightness, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change.

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.

what are the four basic and distinct skin senses

pressure, warmth, cold, and pain

parallel processing

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

George Stratton

proved that kittens, monkeys, and humans can adapt to an inverted world by wearing an optical headgear for 8 days that flipped left to right and up to down, making him the first person to experience a right-side-up retinal image while standing upright

what are the grouping examples?

proximity, continuity, closure

Affecting physical events or objects with one's mind is called _____.

psychokinesis

Brent believes in "mind over matter" and thinks that some people are able to move objects with their mind. This ability that he believes in is an example of:

psychokinesis.

The adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters is called the:

pupil

Cats are able to open their ____ much wider than we can, which allows more light into their eyes so they can see better at night.

pupils

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

recognizing objects by sight.

Some night-loving animals, such as toads, mice, rats, and bats, have impressive night vision thanks to having many more _____ (rods/cones) than ____ (rods/cones) in their retinas. These creatures probably have very poor ____ (color/black-and-white) vision.

rods, cones, color

Immanuel Kant

said that knowledge comes from our inborn ways of organizing sensory experiences

John Locke

said that through our experiences we also learn to perceive the world

Kari is a fan of heavy metal music. Her mother is concerned because she knows that prolonged exposure to ear-splitting music can cause:

sensorineural hearing loss.

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

sensory interaction.

One sense influencing the perception of another is known as:

sensory interaction.

Thomas Young

showed that light, like waves, could be diffracted

Marty is a diabetic who lost his vision two months ago. He experiences nonthreatening hallucinations known as phantom:

sights

Sensory messages from nociceptors ultimately travel to the _____ cortex.

somatosensory

subliminal sensation

stimuli so weak that we don't consciously notice them. can affect us

In a condition called _____, one sort of sensation, such as hearing sound, produces another, such as seeing color.

synesthesia

Seeing the numeral 3, for instance, may evoke a particular taste sensation in a condition called:

synethesia

perceptual adaptation

the ability to adjust to changed sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Priming

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

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 stimulus energy needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.

linear perspective

the more parallel lines converge, the greater their perceived distance. (parallel lines appear to meet in the distance)

frequency

the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second. the actual rate at which the sound wave alternates between high and low pressure)

audition

the sense or act of hearing.

perceptual set

a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.

How do we normally perceive depth?

(1) binocular cues (which are based on our retinal disparity), and (2) monocular cues (which include relative height, relative size, interposition, linear perspective, light and shadow, and relative motion).

How do we transform sound waves into nerve impulses that our brain interprets?

(a) The outer ear funnels sound waves to the eardrum. The bones of the middle ear (hammer, anvil, and stirrup) amplify and relay the eardrum's vibrations through the oval window into the fluid-filled cochlea. (b) As shown in this detail of the middle and inner ear, the resulting pressure changes in the cochlear fluid cause the basilar membrane to ripple, bending the hair cells on its surface. Hair cell movements trigger impulses at the base of the nerve cells, whose fibers join together to form the auditory nerve. That nerve sends neural messages to the thalamus and on to the auditory cortex.

All of our senses do what?

-Receive sensory stimulation, often using specialized receptor cells -Transform that stimulation into neural impulses -Deliver the neural information to our brain

How do we perceive color in the world around us?

According to the Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three-color) theory, the retina contains three types of color receptors. Contemporary research has found three types of cones, each most sensitive to the wavelengths of one of the three primary colors of light (red, green, or blue). According to the opponent-process theory, there are three additional color processes (red-versus-green, blue-versus-yellow, black-versus-white). Contemporary research has confirmed that, on the way to the brain, neurons in the retina and the thalamus code the color-related information from the cones into pairs of opponent colors. These two theories, and the research supporting them, show that color processing occurs in two stages.

In what ways are our senses of taste and smell similar, and how do they differ?

Both taste and smell are chemical senses. Taste involves five basic sensations—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. Taste receptors in the taste buds carry messages to matching partner cells in the brain. There are no basic sensations for smell. Some 20 million olfactory receptor cells for smell, located at the top of each nasal cavity, send messages to the brain. These cells work together, combining their messages into patterns that vary, depending on the different odors they detect.

What do we mean by bottom-up processing and top-down processing?

Bottom-up processing is analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain. Top-down processing is information processing guided by higher-level mental processing, such as when we construct perceptions by filtering information through our experience and expectations.

What was the main message of Gestalt psychology, and how do figure-ground and grouping principles help us perceive forms?

Gestalt psychologists showed that the brain organizes bits of sensory information into gestalts, or meaningful forms. In pointing out that the whole may exceed the sum of its parts, they noted that we filter sensory information and construct our perceptions. To recognize an object, we must first perceive it as distinct (see it as a figure) from its surroundings (the ground). We bring order and form to sensory input by organizing it into meaningful groups, following such rules as proximity, continuity, and closure.

How do we use binocular and monocular cues to see in three dimensions?

Humans and many other species perceive depth at, or very soon after, birth. We transform two-dimensional retinal images into three-dimensional depth perceptions that allow us to see objects in three dimensions and to judge distance. Binocular cues, such as retinal disparity, are depth cues that rely on information from both eyes. Monocular cues (such as relative size, interposition, relative height, relative motion, linear perspective, and light and shadow) let us judge depth using information transmitted by only one eye.

What are feature detectors, and what do they do?

In the visual cortex, nerve cells called feature detectors respond to specific features of the visual stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement.

Does perceptual set involve bottom-up or top-down processing? Why?

It involves top-down processing, because it draws on our experiences, assumptions, and expectations when interpreting stimuli.

What biological, psychological, and social-cultural influences affect our experience of pain? How do placebos, distraction, and hypnosis help control pain?

Pain reflects bottom-up sensations (such as input from nociceptors, the sensory receptors that detect hurtful temperatures, pressure, or chemicals) and top-down processes (such as experience, attention, and culture). Pain treatments often combine physical and psychological elements, including distractions. Combining a placebo with distraction, and amplifying the effect with hypnosis (which increases our response to suggestions), can help relieve pain. Posthypnotic suggestion is used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behavior.

How do our expectations, contexts, motivations, and emotions influence our perceptions?

Perception is influenced by our perceptual set—our mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another. Our physical, emotional, and cultural context, as well as our motivation, can create expectations about what we will perceive, thus affecting those perceptions.

How do perceptual constancies help us construct meaningful perceptions?

Perceptual constancy is our ability to recognize an object regardless of the changing image it casts upon our retinas due to its changing angle, distance, or illumination. Color constancy is our ability to perceive consistent color in an object, even though the lighting and wavelengths shift. Shape constancy is our ability to perceive familiar objects (such as an opening door) as unchanging in shape. Size constancy is our ability to perceive objects as unchanging in size despite their changing retinal images. Knowing an object's size gives us clues to its distance; knowing its distance gives clues about its size, but we sometimes misread monocular distance cues and reach the wrong conclusions, as in the Moon illusion.

Ewald Hering

Proposed Opponent-Process theory

Monocular depth cues

Relative height, relative size, relative motion, texture gradient, interposition, linear perspective, height in plane, light and shadow, motion parallax

What is the rough distinction between sensation and perception?

Sensation is the bottom-up process by which your sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimuli. Perception is the top-down process by which your brain creates meaning by organizing and interpreting what your senses detect.

What are the characteristics of the air pressure waves that we hear as sound?

Sound waves vary in amplitude (perceived as loudness) and in frequency (perceived as pitch—a tone's highness or lowness). Sound energy is measured in decibels.

Eleanor Gibson

The "visual cliff" experiment. Showed that depth perception cues are innate.

What are the basic steps in transforming sound waves into perceived sound?

The outer ear collects sound waves, which are translated into mechanical waves by the middle ear and turned into fluid waves in the inner ear. The auditory nerve then translates the energy into electrical waves and sends them to the brain, which perceives and interprets the sound.

How do the rods and cones process information, and what path does information take from the eye to the brain?

The retina's light-sensitive rods and color-sensitive cones convert the light energy into neural impulses. After processing by bipolar and ganglion cells in the eyes' retina, neural impulses travel through the optic nerve to the thalamus and on to the visual cortex.

What are the characteristics of the energy we see as visible light?

The visible light we experience is just a thin slice of the broad spectrum of electromagnetic energy. The hue (blue, green, and so forth) we perceive in a light depends on its wavelength, and its brightness depends on its intensity.

Do the two key theories of color vision contradict each other, or do they make sense together?

These theories make sense together. They outline the two stages of color vision: (1) The retina's receptors for red, green, and blue respond to different color stimuli. (2) The receptors' signals are then processed by the opponent-process cells on their way to the visual cortex in the brain.

How does the ear transform sound energy into neural messages?

Through a mechanical chain of events, sound waves travel from the outer ear through the auditory canal, causing tiny vibrations in the eardrum. The bones of the middle ear transmit the vibrations to the fluid-filled cochlea in the inner ear, causing waves of movement in hair cells lining the basilar membrane. This movement triggers nerve cells to send signals along the auditory nerve to the thalamus and then to the brain's auditory cortex. Small differences in the loudness and timing of the sounds received by each ear allow us to locate sounds. Sensorineural hearing loss (or nerve deafness) results from damage to the cochlea's hair cells or their associated nerves. Conduction hearing loss results from damage to the mechanical system that transmits sound waves to the cochlea. Cochlear implants can restore hearing for some people.

How do we sense our body's position and movement?

Through kinesthesia, we sense the position and movement of individual body parts. We monitor our head's (and therefore our body's) position and movement, and maintain our balance, with our vestibular sense.

How does the brain use parallel processing to construct visual perceptions?

Through parallel processing, the brain handles many aspects of vision (color, movement, form, and depth) simultaneously. Other neural teams integrate the results, comparing them with stored information and enabling perceptions.

Rebecca has had a cold for five days and her nose is so blocked that she cannot smell anything. When she goes to drink her coffee, she realizes it has no taste. What is the MOST likely reason for this phenomenon?

To savor a taste, she may need to breathe the aroma through her nose.

Why do you feel a little dizzy immediately after a roller-coaster ride?

Your vestibular sense regulates balance and body positioning through kinesthetic receptors triggered by fluid in your inner ear. Wobbly legs and a spinning world are signs that these receptors are still responding to the ride's turbulence. As your vestibular sense adjusts to solid ground, your balance will be restored.

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.

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.

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.

conduction hearing loss

a less common form of hearing loss, caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.

hypnosis

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

posthypnotic suggestion

a suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors.

pitch

a tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency. (what our brain perceives)

Subliminal stimuli are

below our absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Sensation is to _________ as perception is to ________.

bottom-up processing; top-down processing

Cones are the eye's receptor cells that are especially sensitive to _________ light and are responsible for our ________ vision.

bright; color

The amount of energy in a light wave—its intensity—is perceived as _____.

brightness

optic nerve

carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain. (information highway from the eye to the brain)

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.

Hermann von Helmholtz

first to measure the speed of a nerve impulse

The retina's central focal point is the _____, which contains only cones and no rods.

fovea

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

grouping.

The sensory receptors that are found mostly in the skin and that detect hurtful temperatures, pressure, or chemicals are called __________________.

nociceptors

While Maria was stacking her term paper, she received a paper cut. The cut produced a sharp pain on her index finger. This pain was initiated by _____ in her skin.

nociceptors

sensory adaptation

reduced sensitivity in response to constant stimulation.

cones

retinal receptors 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. (cluster in and around the fovea) 120 million.

rods

retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray, and are sensitive to movement; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond. 6 million.

Two theories together account for color vision. The Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory shows that the eye contains ______, and Hering's theory accounts for the nervous system's having _______.

three types of color receptors; opponent-process cells

The fact that perceptions involve more than the sum of a person's sensations BEST illustrates the importance of:

top-down processing.