Psychology Chapter 4
Terms
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- perception
- a psychological process : the act of organizing and interpreting sensory experience
- sensory adaptation
- the process by which our sensitivity diminishes when an object constantly stimulates our senses
- absolute threshold
- the lowest intensity level of a stimulus a person can detect half of the time
- transduction
- the conversion of physical into neural information
- psychophysics
- the study of how people psychologically perceive physical stimuli such as light, sound waves, and touch
- signal detection theory
- the viewpoint that both stimulus intensity and decision-making processes are involved in the detection of stimulus
- difference threshold
- the smallest amount of change between two stimuli that a person can detect half of the time
- Weber's law
- the finding that the size of a just noticeable difference is a constant fraction of the intensity of the stimulus
- perceptual set
- the effect of frame of mind on perception; a tendency to perceive stimuli in a certain manner
- pupil
- the opening in the iris through which light enter the eye
- iris
- the muscle that forms the colored part of the eye it adjusts the pupil to regulates the amount of light that enters the eye
- cornea
- the clear hard covering that protects the lens of the eye
- lens
- the structure that sits behind the pupil; it bends the light rays that enter the eye to focus images on the retina
- accommodation
- the process by which the muscles control the shape of the lens to adjust to viewing objects at different distances
- photoreceptors
- cells in the retina called rods and cones that convert light energy into nerve energy; they are transducers
- retina
- the thin layer of nerve tissue that lines the back of the eye
- rods
- the photoreceptors that function in low illumination and play a key role in night vision; responsive to dark and light contrast
- cones
- photoreceptors that are responsible for color vision and are most functional in conditions of bright light
- visual acuity
- the ability to see clearly
- dark adaptation
- process of adjustment to seeing in the dark
- fovea
- spot on the back of the retina that contains the highest concentration of cones in the retina; place of clearest vision
- optic nerve
- structure composed of the axons of ganglion cells from the retina that carry visual information from the eye to the brain
- optic chiasm
- the point at which strands of the optic nerve from half of each eye cross over to the opposite side of the brain
- feature detector
- neurons in the visual cortex that analyze the retinal image and respond to specific aspects of shapes, such as angles and movements
- depth perception
- the ability to see things in three dimensions and to discriminate what is near from what is far
- binocular depth cues
- aids to depth perception that rely on input from both eyes
- convergence
- a binocular depth cue: the way in which the eyes move inward as an object moves closer to you
- monocular depth cues
- aids to depth perception that do not require two eyes
- perceptual constancy
- the ability of the brain to preserve perception of objects in spite of changes in retinal image when an object changes in position or distance from the viewer
- similarity
- the Gestalt tendency to group like objects together in visual perception
- continuity
- the Gestalt tendency to see points or lines in such a way that they follow a continuous path
- proximity
- the Gestalt tendency to group objects together that are near one another
- closure
- the Gestalt tendency to see a whole object even when complete information isn't available
- bottom-up processing
- assembling a perceptual experience
- top-down processing
- perception of the whole based on our experience and expectations which guide our perception of smaller elemental features of a stimulus
- trichromatic color theory
- the theory that all color that we experience results from a mixing of three colors of light (red, green, and blue)
- afterimages
- visual images that remain after removal of or looking away from the stimulus
- opponent process theory
- the theory that color vision results from cones linked together in three opposing pairs of colors so that activation of one member of the pair inhibits activity in the other
- tympanic membrane
- the eardrum
- cochlea
- a body tube of the inner ear, which is curled like a snail's shell and filled with fluid
- basilar membrane
- a membrane that runs through the cochlea; contains the hair cells
- hair cells
- inner ear sensory receptors that transduce sound vibrations into neural impulses
- auditory nerve
- the nerve that receives action potentials from the hair cells and transmits auditory information to the brain
- semicircular canals
- structure of the inner ear involved in maintaining balance
- bodily senses
- the sense based in the skin, body, or any membrane surfaces
- mechanoreceptors
- receptor cells in the skin that are sensitive to different tactile qualities such as shape grooves or vibrations
- pain
- a complex emotional and sensory experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage
- gate control theory of pain
- idea that the spinal cord regulates the experience of pain by either opening or closing neural channels called gates that transmit pain sensations to the brain
- olfactory sensory neurons
- the sensory receptors that smell that reside high up inside the nose
- olfactory bulb
- a forebrain structure that sends information either directly to the smell processing areas in the cortex or indirectly to the way cortex by way of the thalamus
- papillae
- textured structures on the surface of the tongue that contain thousands of taste buds
- taste buds
- structures inside the papillae of the tongue that contain the taste receptor cells
- taste receptor cells
- sensory receptors for taste that reside in the taste buds
- synesthesia
- an unusual sensory experience in which a person experiences sensation in one sense when a different sense is stimulated