Psych Chapters 5 & 11

What dimensions do we categorize color along?

1. hue 2. saturation 3. brightness

The sensory process

1. stimulus 2. sensation 3. sensory coding 4. perception

Eustress

stress of positive events

Every taste experience is composed of a mixture of 5 basic qualities..

sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami (savory/tasty)

Most sensory information is transmitted first to the _____ before it is sent to the _____, where it is interpreted as sight, sound, or touch.

thalamus; cortex

The fight or flight response is characterized by..

-activation of the endocrine system -mobilization of body resources to deal with the stressor -increased sympathetic nervous system arousal

HPA system

-cerebral cortex labels events -info transmitted to hypothalamus -stimulates pituitary gland -pituitary releases hormones -adrenal cortex releases corticosteroids

Sensory adaptation

-habituation -a decrease in sensitivity to a constant level of stimulation -if a stimulus is constantly presented, the response of the sensory system that detects it diminishes over time (when a continuous stimulus stops, the sensory systems respond strongly too)

Cochlear implant

-helps people with hearing problems due to loss of hair cells in the inner ear -directly stimulates the auditory nerve, doesn't amplify sound

Slow fibers for pain

-less myelin -chronic, dull, steady pain -activated by chemical changes in tissue when the skin is damaged

Cones

-less sensitive to low levels of light -vision under high illumination -seeing *color and detail* -found throughout the retina but concentrated at the fovea

Fast fibers for pain

-more myelin -sharp, immediate pain -activated by strong physical pressure and temperature extremes

Rods

-respond at low levels of illumination -responsible for *night vision* -found on the outer edges of the retina

How does visual detection work?

-very little of what we see takes place in the eye -but is a result of constructive processes that occur throughout the brain

.Typically in humans, what is worse- the stressor or the stress response?

. the stress response is usually worse than the stressor itself.

Dr. Robert Sapolsky (the scientist in the video Killer Stress) wrote a book entitled "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers." Based on what you learned, you should know the answer to this question! Why don't zebras get ulcers?

Their stress response ends when the stressor is terminated

Hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis

a body system involved in stress responses -helps body respond to stressor -stress still affects organs after the stressor has been removed -excessive stress disrupts working and long term memory

General adaptation syndrome

a consistent pattern of responses to stress that consists of three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion

Biopsychosocial model

a model of health that integrates the effects of biological, behavioral, and social factors on health and illness

Well-being

a positive state that includes striving for optimal health and life satisfaction.

Health

a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. NOT just the absence of disease.

Trichromatic theory

activity in three different types of cones that are sensitive to different wavelengths

Coping response

any attempt made to avoid, escape from, or minimize a stressor

Optic chiasm

axons in the optic nerves cross to the lift and right hemispheres, travel to visual areas of the thalamus and then to primary visual cortex within the occipital lobe

Many highly intelligent people in various occupations (e.g., emergency room workers, first responders) will swear that crazy things happen during a full moon. However, research investigating these incidences across the range of moon phases shows no correlation. If people engaged in ________ processing, they would see that there is really no relationship between "lunacy" and the full moon.

bottom-up

The detection of external stimulation and sending that information to the brain for analysis is _________ processing; labeling, classifying, and giving meaning to the stimulus is _________ processing.

bottom-up; top-down

Perception

brain's processing of the detected signals, leading to internal (subjective) representations of the stimuli that create a conscious experience of the world.

1981 Nobel Prize winners David Hubel & Torsten Wiesel mapped out the action of receptor cells in the visual pathway from the retina to the cerebral cortex. What did they find?

certain cells in the visual cortex respond to stimuli only if a line falls on the retina in a particular orientation

Major life stressors

changes/disruptions that strain central areas of people's lives -ex. having your first child

Joe and Jane are both seniors at SAU. Joe is experiencing a lot of stress right now. He sees COVID-19 as a personal threat, and is sure that his grades will suffer because of this situation, and then he won't be able to get into graduate school. Jane is a little stressed, but she understands that there is little she can do but to stay calm, practice social distancing, and keep washing her hands. She knows her professors are not out to get her, and she actually looks forward to a little social distancing so she can get some personal goals accomplished, like reading some good books and working out more regularly. Joe and Jane have different responses to the same situation because they have different:

cognitive appraisals

Signal detection theory

detecting a stimulus requires making a judgment about its presence or absence, based on subjective interpretation of ambiguous information

Sensation is ____________________; whereas perception is:

detecting a stimulus; recognizing a stimulus

Amplitude

determines loudness

Frequency

determines pitch

Opponent process theory

different types of ganglion cells working in opposing pairs, create the perception that R/G, B/Y are opposites

What are light waves transducted into?

electrical neural impulses (initiated by the photopigments in rods and cones)

Secondary appraisals

evaluating response options and choosing coping behaviors

Cognitive appraisal

evaluating the potential threat and your resources available to handle it -triggers the stress response -automatic and unconscious

Usually, perception is..

fairly accurate

Psychophysics

field that examines psychological experiences of physical stimuli

According to Zimbardo, the task of visual perception is to:

find out what the stimulus object in the environment is

What cells are the first in the visual pathway that have axons?

ganglion cells

The reason people fail to notice how strong their perfume really is (or think their own poop doesn't smell!) is due to:

habituation (sensory adaptation)

Prolonged exposure to stress has been shown to damage neurons in the ________, a structure critical for forming new long-term declarative memories.

hippocampus

Top down processing

how knowledge, expectations, or past experiences shape the interpretation of sensory information.

The HPA axis involves initial activation of the ________, which is considered to be the "hub" of the stress response.

hypothalamus

Where does visual perception begin?

in the occipital lobe

A false idea bout perception is that..

it is impossible to perceive objects as constant and stable when sensations change

Color of light is determined by...

its wavelength

Karl is cooking for his friend. Karl loves spicy curry, but his friend prefers a milder one. Starting with a bland curry, Karl increases the spiciness every time he cooks. One day his friend complains that the curry is too spicy. After that, Karl always makes the curry only as spicy as the last time before his friend complained. Karl was assessing his friend's:

just noticeable difference

Primary appraisals

making decisions about whether a stimulus is stressful, benign, or irrelevant

Difference threshold

minimum amount of change required for a person to detect a difference ("just noticeable difference")

Absolute threshold

minimum intensity of stimulation that must occur before you experience a sensation 50% of the time

Sensation

our sense organs' detection and response to external stimulus, including the transport of those responses to the brain.

Bottom up processing

perception based on the physical features of the stimulus.

Vestibular sense

perception of balance, uses information from receptors in the semicircular canals of the inner ear

Kinesthetic sense

perception of the body's position in space and movements of our bodies and our limbs

Which of the following allows us to perceive the world as stable and unchanging, despite changing sensations?

perceptual constancies

Transduction

process by which sensory receptors produce neural impulses when they receive stimulation (physical/chemical)

Stress

process by which we perceive and respond to events, seen as threatening or challenging

What kinds of info about a stimulus does the brain need?

qualitative and quantitative

Consider the rat/man illusion. Subjects identified the drawing as a:

rat or man, depending upon whether they had previously seen pictures of animals or faces

According to gate control theory, pain

reflects an interaction among, biological, psychological, and cultural influences

You are reading her psychology text. The activation of receptors in your retina is called _____; your interpretation of the stimuli as particular words is termed _____.

sensation; perception

Olfaction

sense of smell -odors pass into the nose and nasal cavity -contact a layer of tissue embedded with smell receptors called the *olfactory bulb* -most direct route to the brain -intensity of smell involved in emotion and memory

Audition

sense of sound -displacement of air molecules -produce a sound wave: change of air pressure traveling through the air -ears convert sound waves to brain activity, which produces the sensation of sound

Gustation

sense of taste -taste buds: sensory organs that send signals to the brain

Haptic sense

sense of touch -*integration* of various signals and higher level mental processes produces haptic experiences

What are the effects of short term stress vs long term stress?

short term- boosts immune system long term- weakens

Daily hassles

small, day-to-day irritations and annoyances -ex. driving in heavy traffic

Stressor

something in the environment perceived as threatening or demanding therefore produces stress

Weber's Law

states that the just noticeable difference between two stimuli is based on the proportion of the original stimulus rather than on a fixed amount of difference

Smell

stimuli: fluid on mucous membranes in the nose receptors: sensitive ends of olfactory neurons in the mucous membranes pathway: olfactory nerves

Vision

stimuli: light waves receptors: rods and cones in eye pathway: optic nerve

Taste

stimuli: molecules dissolved in fluid on tongue receptors: cells in taste buds on tongue pathway: facial/vagus nerves

Touch

stimuli: pressure on skin receptors: ends of touch neurons in skin pathway: cranial and spinal nerves

Hearing

stimuli: sound waves receptors: hair cells in cochlea of inner ear pathway: auditory nerves

Distress

stress of negative events

Gestalt psychologists' ideas (e.g., closure, continuity, similarity) emphasized:

the organizing processes and principles that underlie perception

Humans' tendency to perceive meaning in random events is:

the result of neurons firing in ways that "fill in the blanks" between stimulus input

Because the brain cannot process physical stimuli directly, it must convert the stimuli into chemical and electrical signals that can be interpreted by the brain. This process is known as:

transduction

Our sensory receptors perform many tasks. Which of the following is NOT performed by our sensory receptors?

translating neural impulses into meaningful psychological experiences

Sensory coding

translation of physical properties of stimulus, done by sensory receptors into patterns of neural impulses.